VulnerabilityPublished 7 Aug 2025

CVE-2025-32094: Akamai AkamaiGhost · HTTP Request/Response Smuggling

Affects Akamai AkamaiGhostSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.0 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 09:15 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

4.0Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 46% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: High
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: Low
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: High: A successful attack depends on conditions beyond the attacker's control. That is, a successful attack cannot be accomplished at will, but requires the attacker to invest in some measurable amount of effort in preparation or execution against the vulnerable component before a successful attack can be expected. For example, a successful attack may require an attacker to: gather knowledge about the environment in which the vulnerable target/component exists; prepare the target environment to improve exploit reliability; or inject themselves into the logical network path between the target and the resource requested by the victim in order to read and/or modify network communications (e.g., a man in the middle attack).
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 7 Aug 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Akamai AkamaiGhost	Affected =0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

European organizations using AkamaiGhost should monitor Akamai's official advisories for patches and apply them promptly once available. In the interim, they should work with Akamai support to verify if any configuration changes can mitigate the risk, such as disabling support for obsolete line folding or strict validation of HTTP headers and methods. Web application firewalls (WAFs) should be configured to detect and block anomalous HTTP requests, especially those with unusual header combinations like "Expect: 100-continue" in OPTIONS requests. Network monitoring should focus on detecting unusual HTTP request patterns indicative of smuggling attempts. Additionally, organizations should conduct internal testing to simulate such requests and verify that their CDN and backend infrastructure handle them consistently. Finally, educating developers and security teams about HTTP request smuggling risks and ensuring secure coding practices around HTTP parsing can reduce the attack surface.

Description

An issue was discovered in Akamai Ghost, as used for the Akamai CDN platform before 2025-03-26. Under certain circumstances, a client making an HTTP/1.x OPTIONS request with an "Expect: 100-continue" header, and using obsolete line folding, can lead to a discrepancy in how two in-path Akamai servers interpret the request, allowing an attacker to smuggle a second request in the original request body.

Impact

For European organizations relying on Akamai's CDN services, this vulnerability could allow attackers to bypass security controls by injecting unauthorized HTTP requests. Although the direct impact is limited to integrity (e.g., request manipulation), this can facilitate further attacks such as web cache poisoning, cross-site scripting, or unauthorized access to internal resources if combined with other vulnerabilities. Given Akamai's widespread use among European enterprises for web acceleration and security, exploitation could undermine trust in web applications and services, potentially leading to reputational damage and indirect financial losses. However, the high attack complexity and lack of known exploits reduce immediate risk. Organizations in sectors with high web traffic and sensitive data, such as finance, e-commerce, and government, may face more significant risks if attackers chain this vulnerability with others.

CWE-444Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request/Response Smuggling') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessOWASP Top 10 A06:2025: Insecure Design (opens in a new tab)
The product acts as an intermediary HTTP agent (such as a proxy or firewall) in the data flow between two entities such as a client and server, but it does not interpret malformed HTTP requests or responses in ways that are consistent with how the messages will be processed by those entities that are at the ultimate destination.
Implementation
Use a web server that employs a strict HTTP parsing procedure, such as Apache.
Implementation
Use only SSL communication.
Implementation
Terminate the client session after each request.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
REST Assessment (opens in a new tab)
REST Security (opens in a new tab)
Cross-Site Request Forgery Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Secure Design Principles (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V13.2.5 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
HTTP Response Smuggling (opens in a new tab)
HTTP Request Smuggling (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 7 Aug 2025, 04:32 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-444

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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