Vulnerability in Cookies

CVE-2026-88038

cookies is a Node.js library for reading and writing HTTP cookies, used by Koa via ctx.cookies. In versions before 0.9.2 the library validates the cookie name and value against character sets that reject the semicolon separator, but the domain and path options are checked only against a permissive RFC 7230 field-content matcher that allows semicolons, and both are written into the Set-Cookie header unescaped. An application that passes untrusted or request-derived data into the domain or path option can therefore inject additional cookie attributes, overriding SameSite, Secure, HttpOnly, or Domain on the cookies the application issues. This is a Set-Cookie attribute injection issue (CWE-74). The issue is fixed in cookies 0.9.2, which validates domain and path against RFC 6265 character sets. As a workaround, keep domain and path application-set rather than derived from untrusted input.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 4.8 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.003 (15.9th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 16th percentile — 15.9% 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-2026-88038: held from 0.003 to 0.003.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.003 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-88038?
CVE-2026-88038 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Cookies, classified under Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component (Injection). CVSS score: 4.8/10. Published 2026-09-10.
How severe is CVE-2026-88038?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.8 out of 10.