Critical Axios Vulnerability Allows Remote Code Execution

Following the disclosure of a critical security flaw in Axios, a widely used promise-based HTTP client for Node.js and browsers, the cybersecurity community is on high alert.

Security researcher Jason Saayman recently disclosed an unrestricted vulnerability that allows exfiltration of cloud metadata.

This dangerous flaw enables attackers to execute remote code or compromise the entire cloud environment without requiring any direct user input.

Axios Vulnerability – PoC Released

The vulnerability, officially tracked as CVE-2026-40175, resides deep within Axios’s header processing component, specifically in the lib/adapters/http.js file.

Because the software lacks proper HTTP header sanitization, Axios behaves destructively when prototype pollution occurs in a third-party dependency.

If a threat actor successfully pollutes the Object. prototype through an unrelated library in the software stack, Axios automatically merges these malicious properties during its normal configuration process.

Since the software fails to sanitize these merged header values for carriage return and line feed characters, the polluted property becomes a stealthy request-smuggling payload.

This specific execution chain is exceptionally severe because it requires zero direct user interaction. A completely safe, hardcoded request programmed by a developer can be unknowingly hijacked to trigger the full exploit chain.

When a smuggled secondary request successfully executes, it can target the AWS Metadata Service directly. This sophisticated exploit bypasses AWS IMDSv2 security controls by successfully injecting the required session token headers, an action that a standard server-side request forgery cannot perform.

Once the metadata service returns a valid session token, attackers can effortlessly steal IAM credentials.

This unauthorized access empowers threat actors to rapidly escalate their privileges, pivot into restricted internal administrative panels via cookie or authorization header injection, and achieve a complete cloud account takeover.

This critical flaw impacts countless applications across the global development ecosystem.

• Vulnerable software releases: All versions before 1.15.0 (including v0.x and v1.x)
• Fully patched releases: Version 1.15.0 and newer

Mitigation Strategies

Development and security teams must urgently upgrade their Axios installations to version 1.15.0 or later to fully mitigate this critical vulnerability.

This specific release introduces strict header validation mechanisms, ensuring that any header values containing invalid characters will immediately throw a critical security error before processing.

Furthermore, organizations should comprehensively audit their complete dependency graphs for underlying prototype pollution vulnerabilities in other npm packages.

Because Axios leverages these helper flaws to execute the exploit, securing the entire software stack is essential to maintain robust security.

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