Authentication Bypass via Double URL Encoding in Astro

Bypass for CVE-2025-64765 / GHSA-ggxq-hp9w-j794

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Summary

A double URL encoding bypass allows any unauthenticated attacker to bypass path-based authentication checks in Astro middleware, granting unauthorized access to protected routes. While the original CVE-2025-64765 (single URL encoding) was fixed in v5.15.8, the fix is insufficient as it only decodes once. By using double-encoded URLs like /%2561dmin instead of /%61dmin, attackers can still bypass authentication and access protected resources such as /admin, /api/internal, or any route protected by middleware pathname checks.

Fix

A more secure fix is just decoding once, then if the request has a %xx format, return a 400 error by using something like :

if (containsEncodedCharacters(pathname)) {
            // Multi-level encoding detected - reject request
            return new Response(
                'Bad Request: Multi-level URL encoding is not allowed',
                {
                    status: 400,
                    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain' }
                }
            );
        }