CVE-2026-12143

form-data is a library for creating readable multipart/form-data streams. In versions through 4.0.5, the field argument to FormData#append and the filename option are concatenated verbatim into the Content-Disposition header without escaping carriage return (CR), line feed (LF), or double-quote (") characters. An application that passes attacker-controlled data as a field name or filename (for example, an API gateway that turns JSON object keys into multipart field names) allows the attacker to terminate the header line and inject additional headers, or to smuggle entire additional multipart parts, into the request the application forwards to a backend. This can let the attacker add or override form fields (e.g. set is_admin=true) seen by the downstream parser. This is an instance of CWE-93 (CRLF injection). The fix escapes CR, LF, and " as %0D, %0A, and %22 in field names and filenames, matching the serialization browsers use per the WHATWG HTML multipart/form-data encoding algorithm. Exploitation requires the consuming application to use untrusted input as a field name or filename; applications that use only fixed/trusted field names are not affected. Fixed in 2.5.6, 3.0.5, and 4.0.6.

form-data is a library for creating readable multipart/form-data streams. In versions through 4.0.5, the field argument to FormData#append and the filename option are concatenated verbatim into the Content-Disposition header without escaping carriage return (CR), line feed (LF), or double-quote (") characters. An application that passes attacker-controlled data as a field name or filename (for example, an API gateway that turns JSON object keys into multipart field names) allows the attacker to terminate the header line and inject additional headers, or to smuggle entire additional multipart parts, into the request the application forwards to a backend. This can let the attacker add or override form fields (e.g. set is_admin=true) seen by the downstream parser. This is an instance of CWE-93 (CRLF injection). The fix escapes CR, LF, and " as %0D, %0A, and %22 in field names and filenames, matching the serialization browsers use per the WHATWG HTML multipart/form-data encoding algorithm. Exploitation requires the consuming application to use untrusted input as a field name or filename; applications that use only fixed/trusted field names are not affected. Fixed in 2.5.6, 3.0.5, and 4.0.6.

Summary

form-data builds multipart/form-data request bodies. Through v4.0.5, the field name passed to FormData#append and the filename option are concatenated directly into the Content-Disposition header with no escaping of CR (\r), LF (\n), or ". An application that uses untrusted input as a field name or filename therefore lets an attacker terminate the header line and either inject additional headers or smuggle whole additional multipart parts into the request the application forwards to a backend.

This is CWE-93 (CRLF injection). It is a divergence from how browsers and the WHATWG HTML spec serialize form-data (they escape these characters), so the fix is to match that behavior. Severity is conditional: it depends on the consuming application passing attacker-controlled data as a field name or filename. Applications that only use fixed/trusted field names are not affected.

Details

In lib/form_data.js, _multiPartHeader builds the part header as:

'Content-Disposition': ['form-data', 'name="' + field + '"'].concat(contentDisposition || [])

and _getContentDisposition builds filename="' + filename + '"'. Neither escapes control characters, so a \r\n in field/filename ends the header line. The same applies to ", which can break out of the quoted parameter.

Proof of concept

const FormData = require('form-data');
const form = new FormData();
form.append('email"\r\nX-Injected: true\r\nfake="', '[email protected]');
console.log(form.getBuffer().toString());

Before the fix this emits an injected X-Injected: true header line. A field name that also includes --<boundary> sequences can introduce additional parts (e.g. an extra name="is_admin" field), which a downstream parser accepts as legitimate.

Impact

For an application that uses untrusted field names/filenames:

• Field injection / override (integrity). Inject or override fields the backend trusts (e.g. is_admin, role) — the primary demonstrated impact.
• Header injection into the generated multipart part.

Claims of guaranteed privilege escalation, authentication bypass, high confidentiality impact, and availability impact are application-dependent downstream consequences, not properties of form-data itself, and are not demonstrated by the PoC.

Severity

The demonstrated, library-attributable impact is integrity (field/header injection); there is no demonstrated confidentiality disclosure or availability impact in form-data itself, and exploitation requires the consuming app to feed untrusted data into field names/filenames. A Moderate (≈5.3, I:L) rating is also defensible given that precondition.

Patch

Fixed in 4.0.6, 3.0.5, and 2.5.6. Users on older 0.x/1.x/2.x releases should upgrade to 2.5.6 or later.

The fix escapes \r, \n, and " as %0D, %0A, and %22 in field names and filenames, matching the WHATWG HTML multipart/form-data encoding algorithm that browsers implement. This neutralizes the injection while leaving ordinary field names (including name[0], dotted, and unicode names) unchanged.

Workaround

Until upgrading, validate or reject field names/filenames that contain control characters before calling append:

if (/[\r\n]/.test(field)) { throw new Error('invalid field name'); }

Credit

Reported by yueyueL.

form-data is a library for creating readable multipart/form-data streams. In versions through 4.0.5, the field argument to FormData#append and the filename option are concatenated verbatim into the Content-Disposition header without escaping carriage return (CR), line feed (LF), or double-quote (") characters. An application that passes attacker-controlled data as a field name or filename (for example, an API gateway that turns JSON object keys into multipart field names) allows the attacker to terminate the header line and inject additional headers, or to smuggle entire additional multipart parts, into the request the application forwards to a backend. This can let the attacker add or override form fields (e.g. set is_admin=true) seen by the downstream parser. This is an instance of CWE-93 (CRLF injection). The fix escapes CR, LF, and " as %0D, %0A, and %22 in field names and filenames, matching the serialization browsers use per the WHATWG HTML multipart/form-data encoding algorithm. Exploitation requires the consuming application to use untrusted input as a field name or filename; applications that use only fixed/trusted field names are not affected. Fixed in 2.5.6, 3.0.5, and 4.0.6.

form-data is a library for creating readable multipart/form-data streams. In versions through 4.0.5, the field argument to FormData#append and the filename option are concatenated verbatim into the Content-Disposition header without escaping carriage return (CR), line feed (LF), or double-quote (") characters. An application that passes attacker-controlled data as a field name or filename (for example, an API gateway that turns JSON object keys into multipart field names) allows the attacker to terminate the header line and inject additional headers, or to smuggle entire additional multipart parts, into the request the application forwards to a backend. This can let the attacker add or override form fields (e.g. set is_admin=true) seen by the downstream parser. This is an instance of CWE-93 (CRLF injection). The fix escapes CR, LF, and " as %0D, %0A, and %22 in field names and filenames, matching the serialization browsers use per the WHATWG HTML multipart/form-data encoding algorithm. Exploitation requires the consuming application to use untrusted input as a field name or filename; applications that use only fixed/trusted field names are not affected. Fixed in 2.5.6, 3.0.5, and 4.0.6.

form-data is a library for creating readable multipart/form-data streams. In versions through 4.0.5, the field argument to FormData#append and the filename option are concatenated verbatim into the Content-Disposition header without escaping carriage return (CR), line feed (LF), or double-quote (") characters. An application that passes attacker-controlled data as a field name or filename (for example, an API gateway that turns JSON object keys into multipart field names) allows the attacker to terminate the header line and inject additional headers, or to smuggle entire additional multipart parts, into the request the application forwards to a backend. This can let the attacker add or override form fields (e.g. set is_admin=true) seen by the downstream parser. This is an instance of CWE-93 (CRLF injection). The fix escapes CR, LF, and " as %0D, %0A, and %22 in field names and filenames, matching the serialization browsers use per the WHATWG HTML multipart/form-data encoding algorithm. Exploitation requires the consuming application to use untrusted input as a field name or filename; applications that use only fixed/trusted field names are not affected. Fixed in 2.5.6, 3.0.5, and 4.0.6.