CVE-2025-57816
📋 TL;DR
This vulnerability allows attackers to bypass rate limiting protections in Fides privacy engineering platform deployments that rely on its built-in IP-based rate limiting. It affects environments using CDNs, proxies, or load balancers where the system incorrectly identifies infrastructure IPs instead of client IPs. Only deployments using Fides's built-in rate limiting are vulnerable; those using external rate limiting solutions are unaffected.
💻 Affected Systems
- Fides
📦 What is this software?
Fides by Ethyca
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Complete denial of service through unlimited API requests overwhelming the Fides webserver, potentially disrupting privacy operations and data processing.
Likely Case
Partial service degradation through excessive API requests that would normally be rate-limited, impacting performance and availability.
If Mitigated
No impact if external rate limiting (WAF, API gateway) is already deployed or if the vulnerability is patched.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires sending excessive API requests through infrastructure that obscures client IPs (CDNs, proxies, load balancers).
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 2.69.1
Vendor Advisory: https://github.com/ethyca/fides/security/advisories/GHSA-fq34-xw6c-fphf
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Update Fides to version 2.69.1 or later. 2. Restart the Fides webserver service. 3. Verify the update was successful.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Implement external rate limiting
allDeploy a WAF, API gateway, or similar external rate limiting solution that correctly handles client IP identification behind proxies/CDNs.
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Deploy an external rate limiting solution (WAF, API gateway) that properly identifies client IPs.
- Monitor API traffic for unusual patterns and implement alerting for potential abuse.
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check if running Fides version earlier than 2.69.1 and using built-in rate limiting without external protection.Check Version:
Check Fides configuration or deployment manifest for version information.Verify Fix Applied:
Confirm Fides version is 2.69.1 or later and test rate limiting behavior with requests through a proxy/CDN.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusually high volume of API requests from single infrastructure IPs
- Rate limiting logs showing counters not incrementing per client
Network Indicators:
- Sustained high-volume API traffic patterns that bypass expected rate limits
SIEM Query:
source="fides" AND (message="rate limit" OR message="API request") | stats count by src_ip | where count > threshold