CVE-2026-73256 CRITICAL

CVE-2026-73256: Mongoose: HTTP/1.0 detection off-by-one enables request smuggling via chunked TE

Vendor Cesanta
Product mongoose
Weakness CWE-444
Published August 20, 2026
Last update August 21, 2026

CVSS base score

9.1/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required None
User interaction None
Confidentiality High
Integrity High

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

What the vulnerability does

01Description

Mongoose is an embedded web server and network library. Prior to 7.22, a remote unauthenticated attacker can exploit an HTTP/1.0 reverse-proxy deployment by sending a request with Transfer-Encoding: chunked and conflicting framing. The http_cb() function in src/http.c tests hm.proto.len with an impossible greater-than-eight condition even though mg_http_parse() requires an eight-byte protocol string, so is_http_1_0 is never set. Mongoose consequently processes chunked encoding that an HTTP/1.0 proxy can ignore, enabling request smuggling and unauthorized access or state changes. This issue is fixed in version 7.22.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

August 20, 2026 CVE published
August 21, 2026 Record updated