VulnerabilityReceived

CVE-2026-69183

An unauthenticated attacker can rotate either header to create a new bucket for each request, bypassing rootRateLimiter, badAuthRateLimiter, getKey(), and the getKeyWithUid() fallback used by public endpoints.

HIGH 7.5EPSS 0.27%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.27%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

Monkeytype is a minimalistic and customizable typing test. In 26.26.0 and earlier, the backend rate-limit key generator in backend/src/middlewares/rate-limit.ts uses client-controlled cf-connecting-ip and x-forwarded-for headers before the trust-proxy-derived req.ip value. An unauthenticated attacker can rotate either header to create a new bucket for each request, bypassing rootRateLimiter, badAuthRateLimiter, getKey(), and the getKeyWithUid() fallback used by public endpoints. This permits repeated POST /users/forgotPasswordEmail and verificationEmail requests, mail bombing registered users, consuming Firebase or SMTP quota, evading brute-force protection, and enabling resource exhaustion. Exploitability of cf-connecting-ip depends on deployment topology, but x-forwarded-for and direct-to-origin paths remain affected when those values are not overwritten by a trusted proxy. No fixed version is available as of this review.

CVSS 3.1: 7.5 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS: 0.27% probability · 20th percentile
CISA KEV: Not listed
Weakness: CWE-290, CWE-307, CWE-644
Source: security-advisories@github.com

References

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.