CVE-2026-88008: Traefik: Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request/Response Smuggling') and Incorrect Authorization

There is a high-severity request-smuggling vulnerability in Traefik’s handling of the HTTP/1.1 Upgrade mechanism. Since Traefik moved to unencrypted HTTP/2 with prior knowledge (Go 1.24), a client-initiated Upgrade: h2c request header and its connection-specific HTTP2-Settings header were forwarded to the backend. A backend that honours the h2c upgrade and answers 101 Switching Protocols puts Traefik into a raw byte tunnel that bypasses the router and the entire middleware chain (authentication, IPAllowList, rate limiting) on a shared backend. The fix stops forwarding the Upgrade: h2c token and the HTTP2-Settings header; Upgrade: websocket is unaffected. Exploitation requires a backend that upgrades h2c without validating the Connection listing; common off-the-shelf servers were not exploitable in testing.

Traefik v3.4.2 through v3.6 are end-of-life and are also affected; users on those versions must upgrade to v3.7.13.

Traefik’s default HTTP reverse proxy forwards arbitrary Connection: Upgrade / Upgrade: <token> requests to the backend. Upgrade tokens are not restricted to protocols explicitly supported by Traefik.

This is exploitable when a backend accepts a non-WebSocket upgrade such as h2c and responds with 101 Switching Protocols. Traefik then switches the connection into a raw byte tunnel and stops applying the HTTP routing/middleware chain.

An attacker can abuse an unprotected router pointing to the backend to establish the tunnel, then send HTTP/2 requests to other paths on the same backend. Those requests bypass the Traefik router and are therefore not subject to middleware attached to the corresponding protected route.

For example:

/public                         /admin
(no auth)                       (BasicAuth)
|                               |
+----------- same backend ------+
^
|
h2c tunnel
|
attacker

This allows middleware such as BasicAuth, ForwardAuth, IPAllowList, and RateLimit to be bypassed. Requests sent over the tunnel also bypass Traefik’s normal access logging, metrics, and tracing.

The core issue is unrestricted client-initiated protocol upgrades combined with loss of the HTTP routing/middleware layer after 101 Switching Protocols.