Attack Chain

1. An attacker crafts a malicious HTTP form request containing a field with a key starting with __proto__, for example, __proto__[polluted]=yes.
2. The Node.js application receives the HTTP request and uses the form-data-objectizer library to parse the form data.
3. The toObject() function in form-data-objectizer calls the treatInitial function to process the form data.
4. The treatInitial function identifies the __proto__ property and retrieves the corresponding value, which is Object.prototype.
5. The treatSecond function is then called recursively with the remaining part of the key, such as polluted.
6. The treatSecond function directly assigns the attacker-controlled value to Object.prototype[polluted], polluting the prototype.
7. All subsequently created objects in the Node.js process inherit the polluted property.
8. The attacker achieves their objective by modifying application behavior or causing a denial-of-service by exploiting the polluted prototype.

Impact

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability allows an attacker to pollute the prototype of all objects in the Node.js process. This can lead to various consequences, including bypassing if (obj.isAdmin) style checks, injecting unintended config values into objects merged with user input, breaking template rendering, and crashing the worker process due to modifications of properties used by other libraries. The vulnerability affects any application using form-data-objectizer to parse form data, potentially impacting a wide range of Node.js applications. An unauthenticated attacker can trigger this with a single HTTP request.

Recommendation

• Apply the suggested patch provided in the advisory to reject any form key segment equal to __proto__, constructor, or prototype in form-data-objectizer to mitigate CVE-2026-46510.
• Deploy the Sigma rule “Detect Prototype Pollution via form-data-objectizer” to identify exploitation attempts in web server logs.
• Monitor web server logs for suspicious POST requests containing form fields with names starting with __proto__, constructor, or prototype.
• Consider using Object.create(null) for the result object as a preventative measure, but ensure to also guard against direct writes to __proto__ as described in the advisory.