# CVE-2026-44490: Axios: DoS & Header Injection via Prototype Pollution Read-Side Gadgets in axios merge functions

> CVE-2026-44490: Axios: DoS & Header Injection via Prototype Pollution Read-Side Gadgets in axios merge functions. CVSS 4.8 (CVSS 3.1).

Canonical: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2026-44490
Last updated: 2026-06-17T10:50:43Z

- Published: 2026-06-11 15:36 UTC · Updated: 2026-06-17 10:50 UTC · Assigner: GitHub\_M
- CVSS: 4.8 (CVSS 3.1) · Severity: Medium · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
- EPSS: 0.33%, 26th percentile (scored 2026-10-25)
- CISA KEV: no
- CWE: CWE-1321

## Description

Axios is a promise based HTTP client for the browser and Node.js. Prior to 0.32.0 and 1.16.0, axios exposes two read-side prototype-pollution gadgets. When Object.prototype is polluted by an upstream dependency in the same process (e.g. lodash \_.merge / CVE-2018-16487), axios silently picks up the polluted values. (1) lib/utils.js line 406 builds merge()'s accumulator as result = {}, so result\[targetKey\] (line 414) walks Object.prototype and the polluted bucket's own keys are copied into the merged headers and ride out on the wire. (2) lib/core/mergeConfig.js line 26 builds the hasOwnProperty descriptor as a plain-object literal. Object.defineProperty reads descriptor.get/descriptor.set via the prototype chain, so a polluted Object.prototype.get or Object.prototype.set makes the call throw TypeError synchronously on every axios request. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.32.0 and 1.16.0.

## Affected vendors and products

- axios: axios

## Tracked companies

- [Bitbucket](https://rewindex.com/company/bitbucket.md)
- [Confluence](https://rewindex.com/company/confluence.md)
- [Jira](https://rewindex.com/company/jira.md)

## References

- [CVE record on cve.org](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-44490)
- [NVD entry](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-44490)
- [https://github.com/axios/axios/security/advisories/GHSA-898c-q2cr-xwhg](https://github.com/axios/axios/security/advisories/GHSA-898c-q2cr-xwhg)

---

_Sources: CVE records from the CVE Program (cve.org). CVE® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. (https://www.cve.org/) This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. (https://nvd.nist.gov/) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog from CISA. (https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog) EPSS scores from FIRST (Exploit Prediction Scoring System). (https://www.first.org/epss/)_


---
Canonical: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2026-44490 · Markdown: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2026-44490.md · JSON: https://rewindex.com/api/v1/cves/CVE-2026-44490 · Data licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) · Generated 2026-10-26T02:13:25.864Z