CVE-2016-10549
Sails before 0.12.7 vulnerable to Broken CORS
Sails is an MVC style framework for building realtime web applications. Version 0.12.7 and lower have an issue with the CORS configuration where the value of the origin header is reflected as the value for the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header. This would allow an attacker to make AJAX requests to vulnerable hosts through cross site scripting or a malicious HTML Document, effectively bypassing the Same Origin Policy. Note that this is only an issue when allRoutes is set to true and origin is set to * or left commented out in the sails CORS config file. The problem can be compounded when the cors credentials setting is not provided. At that point authenticated cross domain requests are possible.
Attack profile
How easy it is to exploit
- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- High
- Privileges needed
- Low
- User interaction
- Required
What an attacker can affect
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- None
Exploit likelihood
What each source reports
NVD Score used
4.4
Sails is an MVC style framework for building realtime web applications. Version 0.12.7 and lower have an issue with the CORS configuration where the value of the origin header is reflected as the value for the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header. This would allow an attacker to make AJAX requests to vulnerable hosts through cross site scripting or a malicious HTML Document, effectively bypassing the Same Origin Policy. Note that this is only an issue when allRoutes is set to true and origin is set to * or left commented out in the sails CORS config file. The problem can be compounded when the cors credentials setting is not provided. At that point authenticated cross domain requests are possible.
- Record
CVE-2016-10549- CVSS 3.0
- 4.4 Medium
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N - CVSS 2.0
- 2.1 Low
AV:N/AC:H/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N - Weakness
- CWE-284, CWE-79
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
CVE List No score
Sails is an MVC style framework for building realtime web applications. Version 0.12.7 and lower have an issue with the CORS configuration where the value of the origin header is reflected as the value for the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header. This would allow an attacker to make AJAX requests to vulnerable hosts through cross site scripting or a malicious HTML Document, effectively bypassing the Same Origin Policy. Note that this is only an issue when allRoutes is set to true and origin is set to * or left commented out in the sails CORS config file. The problem can be compounded when the cors credentials setting is not provided. At that point authenticated cross domain requests are possible.
- Record
CVE-2016-10549- Weakness
- CWE-284
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2019-0332 No score
Sails is an MVC style framework for building realtime web applications. Version 0.12.7 and lower have an issue with the CORS configuration where the value of the origin header is reflected as the value for the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header. This would allow an attacker to make AJAX requests to vulnerable hosts through cross site scripting or a malicious HTML Document, effectively bypassing the Same Origin Policy. Note that this is only an issue when allRoutes is set to true and origin is set to * or left commented out in the sails CORS config file. The problem can be compounded when the cors credentials setting is not provided. At that point authenticated cross domain requests are possible.
- Record
EUVD-2019-0332- Updated
- 2026-11-03
GitHub AdvisoriesGHSA-qmv4-jgp7-mf68 No score
Sails before 0.12.7 vulnerable to Broken CORS
Affected versions of sails have an issue with the CORS configuration where the value of the origin header is reflected as the value for the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header. This may allow an attacker to make AJAX requests to vulnerable hosts through cross-site scripting or a malicious HTML Document, effectively bypassing the Same Origin Policy.
Mitigating Factors
This is only an issue when allRoutes is set to true and origin is set to * or left commented out in the sails CORS config file.
The problem can be compounded when the cors credentials setting is not provided, because at that point authenticated cross domain requests are possible.
Recommendation
Update to version 0.12.7 or later.
As this vulnerability is primarily a user error, the patch for the vulnerability will simply cause the application to write an error message to the console when a vulnerable configuration is used in a production environment.
Writing a proper CORS configuration is still the responsibility of the user, so it is necessary to check for the error message after installing the patch. Be sure you are not using allRoutes: true with origin:'*', and that you uncomment origin and set it to a reasonable value. Ensure that if origin is set to * that you truly mean for all other websites to be able to make cross-domain requests to your API.
Likewise, ensure credentials is uncommented out and set to the appropriate value. Make sure to explicitly set which origins may request resources via CORS.
- Record
GHSA-qmv4-jgp7-mf68- Weakness
- CWE-284
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSV
4.4
Sails is an MVC style framework for building realtime web applications. Version 0.12.7 and lower have an issue with the CORS configuration where the value of the origin header is reflected as the value for the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header. This would allow an attacker to make AJAX requests to vulnerable hosts through cross site scripting or a malicious HTML Document, effectively bypassing the Same Origin Policy. Note that this is only an issue when allRoutes is set to true and origin is set to * or left commented out in the sails CORS config file. The problem can be compounded when the cors credentials setting is not provided. At that point authenticated cross domain requests are possible.
- Record
CVE-2016-10549- CVSS 3.0
- 4.4 Medium
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N - Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSVGHSA-qmv4-jgp7-mf68 No score
Sails before 0.12.7 vulnerable to Broken CORS
Affected versions of sails have an issue with the CORS configuration where the value of the origin header is reflected as the value for the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header. This may allow an attacker to make AJAX requests to vulnerable hosts through cross-site scripting or a malicious HTML Document, effectively bypassing the Same Origin Policy.
Mitigating Factors
This is only an issue when allRoutes is set to true and origin is set to * or left commented out in the sails CORS config file.
The problem can be compounded when the cors credentials setting is not provided, because at that point authenticated cross domain requests are possible.
Recommendation
Update to version 0.12.7 or later.
As this vulnerability is primarily a user error, the patch for the vulnerability will simply cause the application to write an error message to the console when a vulnerable configuration is used in a production environment.
Writing a proper CORS configuration is still the responsibility of the user, so it is necessary to check for the error message after installing the patch. Be sure you are not using allRoutes: true with origin:'*', and that you uncomment origin and set it to a reasonable value. Ensure that if origin is set to * that you truly mean for all other websites to be able to make cross-domain requests to your API.
Likewise, ensure credentials is uncommented out and set to the appropriate value. Make sure to explicitly set which origins may request resources via CORS.
- Record
GHSA-qmv4-jgp7-mf68- Weakness
- CWE-284
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
Affected products
Affected packages
| Package | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|
sailsnpm |
before 0.12.7 | 0.12.7 |
History
| Recorded | Changed | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| aliases | EUVD | |
| first indexed | CVE List, GitHub Advisories, NVD, OSV |
Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.
In short
CVE-2016-10549 is a medium vulnerability (CVSS 4.4) in Sailsjs Sails, published May 31, 2018. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 0.64%, the 50th percentile. Fixed in sails 0.12.7.
References
sailsjs.org/documentation/concepts/security/cors
nodesecurity.io/advisories/148
sailsjs.org/documentation/reference/configuration/sails-config-cors
nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2016-10549
npmjs.com/advisories/148
github.com/balderdashy/sails/commit/0057123a0321be6758845abbeb4290bf418ce542
github.com/balderdashy/sails/releases/tag/v0.12.7
github.com/advisories/GHSA-qmv4-jgp7-mf68
github.com/balderdashy/sails