Labstack Echo up to 5.0.x RateLimiter Context.RealIP X-Forwarded-For/X-Real-IP privileges management

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as problematic has been reported in Labstack Echo up to 5.0.x. This issue affects the function Context.RealIP of the component RateLimiter. The manipulation of the argument X-Forwarded-For/X-Real-IP leads to privileges management. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2026-118653. The attack can be initiated remotely. There is not any exploit available. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Labstack Echo up to 5.0.x. It has been rated as problematic. This issue affects the function Context.RealIP of the component RateLimiter. The manipulation of the argument X-Forwarded-For/X-Real-IP with an unknown input leads to a privileges management vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-269. The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor. Impacted is integrity. The summary by CVE is:

Echo is a Go web framework. From 4.0.0 until 5.1.0, Context.RealIP falls back to client-supplied X-Forwarded-For or X-Real-IP values when Echo.IPExtractor is unset, and the default RateLimiter uses that result as its client identifier. A remote attacker can rotate arbitrary forwarded-address values to obtain new rate-limit buckets and bypass IP-based throttling used for controls such as brute-force or request-volume protection. This issue is fixed in Echo v5.1.0.

The advisory is shared at github.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-118653 since 10/28/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be initiated remotely. No form of authentication is needed for a successful exploitation. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1068 for this issue.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 373707 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-118653), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.1.0 eliminates this vulnerability.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at Tenable (373707). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Vendor

• Labstack

Name

• Echo

Version

• 5.0

Website

• Product: https://github.com/labstack/echo/

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Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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