VulnerabilityPublished 5 Mar 2026

CVE-2025-64166: mercurius · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

Affects mercuriusSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.4 Medium : upgrade to 16.4.0 when convenient.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 06:59 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.4Medium

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

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 6% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 16.4.0

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: Low
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: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
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: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to 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 5 Mar 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: 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 29 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.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity 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

Upgrade mercurius and mercurius-js/mercurius to 16.4.0.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
mercurius-jsmercurius	Affected <16.4.0	Fixed in 16.4.0
npmmercurius-js/mercurius`pkg:npm/mercurius-js/mercurius`Other threats	Affected <16.4.0	Fixed in 16.4.0

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

Upgrade mercurius to version 16.4.0 or later immediately to apply the official patch that corrects Content-Type parsing.
Implement strict Content-Type validation on the server side to reject or properly handle unexpected content types.
Employ additional CSRF protections such as anti-CSRF tokens or same-site cookies to reduce reliance on Content-Type checks alone.
Review and restrict CORS policies to limit cross-origin requests to trusted domains only.
Conduct security testing on GraphQL endpoints to detect improper request handling or CSRF vulnerabilities.
Educate developers on secure API design and the importance of proper header validation.
Monitor application logs for unusual request patterns that may indicate exploitation attempts.
If upgrading immediately is not feasible, consider implementing web application firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block suspicious content-type header manipulations.

Description

Mercurius is a GraphQL adapter for Fastify. Prior to version 16.4.0, a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability was identified. The issue arises from incorrect parsing of the Content-Type header in requests. Specifically, requests with Content-Type values such as application/x-www-form-urlencoded, multipart/form-data, or text/plain could be misinterpreted as application/json. This misinterpretation bypasses the preflight checks performed by the fetch() API, potentially allowing unauthorized actions to be performed on behalf of an authenticated user. This issue has been patched in version 16.4.0.

Impact

This vulnerability can lead to unauthorized actions being executed on behalf of authenticated users, potentially exposing sensitive data or altering application state without user consent. Organizations using mercurius in their GraphQL APIs may face data confidentiality breaches and integrity violations. While availability is not directly impacted, the unauthorized operations could indirectly affect service reliability or user trust. The ease of exploitation is moderate since it requires user interaction but no authentication or complex conditions. The scope includes all applications using mercurius versions prior to 16.4.0, which may be widespread given mercurius's popularity in Fastify-based GraphQL implementations. Exploitation could facilitate data leakage, privilege escalation within the application context, or unauthorized transactions, impacting sectors relying on secure API communications such as finance, healthcare, and e-commerce.

CWE-352Cross-Site Request Forgery (opens in a new tab)
Compound weaknessLikelihood of exploit: MediumCWE Top 25 (2025): #3OWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
The web application does not, or cannot, sufficiently verify whether a request was intentionally provided by the user who sent the request, which could have originated from an unauthorized actor.
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Implementation
Ensure that the application is free of cross-site scripting issues (CWE-79), because most CSRF defenses can be bypassed using attacker-controlled script.
Architecture and Design
Generate a unique nonce for each form, place the nonce into the form, and verify the nonce upon receipt of the form. Be sure that the nonce is not predictable (CWE-330).
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)
Authorization Testing Automation (opens in a new tab)
Insecure Direct Object Reference Prevention (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V13.2.3 (opens in a new tab)
V4.2.2 (opens in a new tab)
V13.3.2 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
JSON Hijacking (aka JavaScript Hijacking) (opens in a new tab)
Cross-Domain Search Timing (opens in a new tab)
Cross Site Identification (opens in a new tab)
Cross Site Request Forgery (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 5 Mar 2026, 17:51 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-352

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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