VulnerabilityPublished 23 Feb 2026

CVE-2026-26365: Akamai Ghost · HTTP Request/Response Smuggling

Affects Akamai GhostSource CVE Database V5

Compare

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.0 Medium : upgrade to 2026-02-06 when convenient.

Data as of 29 Oct 2026, 19:04 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

4.0Medium

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

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 10% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 2026-02-06

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 23 Feb 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 Akamai Ghost to 2026-02-06.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
AkamaiGhost	Affected <2026-02-06	Fixed in 2026-02-06

AI-suggested

Organizations using Akamai Ghost on Akamai CDN edge servers should prioritize updating to the fixed version released after February 6, 2026, once available. If you cannot patch yet, administrators should implement strict validation and normalization of HTTP headers at the origin server to detect and reject suspicious or malformed requests containing conflicting hop-by-hop headers, especially "Connection" and "Transfer-Encoding." Deploying Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) with updated signatures that detect HTTP request smuggling patterns can provide an additional layer of defense. Monitoring logs for anomalies in HTTP request framing and unusual header combinations can help identify attempted exploitation. Network segmentation and limiting exposure of critical origin servers can reduce risk. Finally, coordinate with Akamai support for guidance on interim mitigations and ensure CDN configurations do not inadvertently exacerbate the vulnerability.

Description

Akamai Ghost on Akamai CDN edge servers before 2026-02-06 mishandles processing of custom hop-by-hop HTTP headers, where an incoming request containing the header "Connection: Transfer-Encoding" could result in a forward request with invalid message framing, depending on the Akamai processing path. This could result in the origin server parsing the request body incorrectly, leading to HTTP request smuggling.

Impact

The primary impact of this vulnerability is the potential for HTTP request smuggling attacks, which can lead to several security issues. Attackers may bypass security controls such as web application firewalls, poison shared caches causing users to receive malicious content, or hijack user sessions by injecting unauthorized requests. This can compromise the integrity of web applications and potentially lead to data leakage or unauthorized actions. Since Akamai CDN is widely used by enterprises globally to accelerate and secure web traffic, this vulnerability could affect a broad range of organizations, including e-commerce platforms, financial institutions, and government services. The medium CVSS score reflects that while exploitation is complex, the consequences of a successful attack can be significant, especially in high-value target environments. The vulnerability does not impact confidentiality directly but affects integrity and could indirectly affect availability if cache poisoning or request manipulation leads to service disruption.

CWE-444Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests (HTTP Request 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

akamai.com/blog/security-research/cve-2026-26365-incorrect-processing-connection-transfer-encoding (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

Loading reviews…

Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 3 Mar 2026, 01:46 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-444

Technical details

References

Community reviews

Related threats