Reference page — cumulative record through Sunday, October 4, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.
Axios: Full Man-in-the-Middle via Prototype Pollution Gadget in `config.proxy`
AV AC PR UI S C I A CVSS EPSS %ile KEV
N H N N C H H N 8.7 .0093 59.3 —
AFFECTED
Product Versions Fixed
axios >= 1.0.0, < 1.16.0 – —
TIMELINE
May 6 Reserved by GitHub_M
Jun 11 EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2026-44494 (axios). Public exploit reference added.
Jun 11 Published (CNA: GitHub_M)
Aug 24 EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2026-44494 (axios). Public exploit reference added.
Aug 25 EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2026-44494 (axios). Public exploit reference added.
Aug 26 EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2026-44494 (axios). Public exploit reference added.
Aug 28 EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2026-44494 (axios). Public exploit reference added.
Sep 7 EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2026-44494 (axios). Public exploit reference added.
Sep 10 EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2026-44494 (axios). Public exploit reference added.
Sep 11 EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2026-44494 (axios). Public exploit reference added.
Description
Axios is a promise based HTTP client for the browser and Node.js. From 1.0.0 to before 1.16.0, the Axios library is vulnerable to a Prototype Pollution "Gadget" attack that allows any Object.prototype pollution in the application's dependency tree to be escalated into a full Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack — intercepting, reading, and modifying all HTTP traffic including authentication credentials. The HTTP adapter at lib/adapters/http.js:670 reads config.proxy via standard property access, which traverses the prototype chain. Because proxy is not present in Axios defaults, the merged config object has no own proxy property, making it trivially injectable via prototype pollution. Once injected, setProxy() routes all HTTP requests through the attacker's proxy server. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.16.0.
About this page
This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2026-44494 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Sunday, October 4, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.
