CVE-2024-1968: Authorization Header Leakage in scrapy/scrapy on Scheme Change Redirects

Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 v3.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.7% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2024-05-20 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-200

Description

In scrapy/scrapy, an issue was identified where the Authorization header is not removed during redirects that only change the scheme (e.g., HTTPS to HTTP) but remain within the same domain. This behavior contravenes the Fetch standard, which mandates the removal of Authorization headers in cross-origin requests when the scheme, host, or port changes. Consequently, when a redirect downgrades from HTTPS to HTTP, the Authorization header may be inadvertently exposed in plaintext, leading to potential sensitive information disclosure to unauthorized actors. The flaw is located in the _build_redirect_request function of the redirect middleware.

Affected products

scrapy/scrapy: through 1.8.4; from 2.0.0 before 2.11.2 — fixed in 2.11.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: scrapy/scrapy 2.11.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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