Highly exploitable, CVE-2026-16221 poses a critical security risk that could lead to severe breaches.
Status: Awaiting Analysis
Last updated: 🕡 21 Jul 2026, 18:31 UTC
Originally published on: 🕒 19 Jul 2026, 15:16 UTC
Time between publication and last update: 2 days
CVSS Release: version 3
ce714d77-add3-4f53-aff5-83d477b104bb
Secondary
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
CVE-2026-16221: Impact: fast-uri versions from 2.3.1 through 4.1.0 (including the 3.x line up to 3.1.3 and the 2.x line up to 2.4.2) do not treat a literal backslash character (U+005C) as an authority delimiter. Node's native WHATWG URL parser, used by fetch, undici, and Node's http and https clients, normalizes the backslash to a forward slash for special schemes such as http, https, ws, wss, ftp, and file. As a result, the two parsers extract different hosts from the same input string. Applications that use fast-uri to enforce host-based policy such as allowlists, denylists, loopback or SSRF filtering, redirect validation, or outbound proxy routing before passing the same URL into Node's URL or fetch consumers can be steered to an unintended destination, including cloud metadata endpoints, loopback, or internal hosts. Patches: upgrade to fast-uri 4.1.1, 3.1.4, or 2.4.3. Workarounds: none.
The exploitability of CVE-2026-16221 depends on two key factors: attack complexity (the level of effort required to execute an exploit) and privileges required (the access level an attacker needs).
With low attack complexity and no required privileges, CVE-2026-16221 is an easy target for cybercriminals. Organizations should prioritize immediate mitigation measures to prevent unauthorized access and data breaches.
A lower complexity and fewer privilege requirements make exploitation easier. Security teams should evaluate these aspects to determine the urgency of mitigation strategies, such as patch management and access control policies.
Attack Complexity (AC) measures the difficulty in executing an exploit. A high AC means that specific conditions must be met, making an attack more challenging, while a low AC means the vulnerability can be exploited with minimal effort.
Privileges Required (PR) determine the level of system access necessary for an attack. Vulnerabilities requiring no privileges are more accessible to attackers, whereas high privilege requirements limit exploitation to authorized users with elevated access.
Above is the CVSS Sub-score Breakdown for CVE-2026-16221, illustrating how Base, Impact, and Exploitability factors combine to form the overall severity rating. A higher sub-score typically indicates a more severe or easier-to-exploit vulnerability.
Below is the Impact Analysis for CVE-2026-16221, showing how Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability might be affected if the vulnerability is exploited. Higher values usually signal greater potential damage.
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