Auth bypass in Headroomlabs-Ai Headroom

CVE-2026-71416

Headroom compresses data before the data reaches a large language model. Prior to version 0.35.0, the Headroom WebSocket server does not validate the `Origin` header of incoming client WebSocket requests before forwarding the request to the upstream server, allowing malicious WebSocket clients to perform arbitrary LLM requests without authentication. This can be exploited by a malicious WebSocket client executed in a traditional or headless browser such as lightpanda, if the browser has access to the Headroom proxy and the OpenAI API key is stored in the `OPENAI_API_KEY` environment variable. Version 0.35.0 fixes the issue.

Vulnerability class: Broken Authentication

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (6.8th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 7th percentile — 6.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-71416: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: -0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-71416?
CVE-2026-71416 is a high-severity vulnerability in Headroomlabs-Ai Headroom, classified under Improper Authentication. CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2026-09-11.
How severe is CVE-2026-71416?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.