express-rate-limit is a basic rate-limiting middleware for Express. In versions starting from 8.0.0 and prior to versions 8.0.2, 8.1.1, 8.2.2, and 8.3.0, the default keyGenerator in express-rate-limit applies IPv6 subnet masking (/56 by default) to all addresses that net.isIPv6() returns true for. This includes IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses (::ffff:x.x.x.x), which Node.js returns as request.ip on dual-stack servers. Because the first 80 bits of all IPv4-mapped addresses are zero, a /56 (or any /32 to /80) subnet mask produces the same network key (::/56) for every IPv4 client. This collapses all IPv4 traffic into a single rate-limit bucket: one client exhausting the limit causes HTTP 429 for all other IPv4 clients. This issue has been patched in versions 8.0.2, 8.1.1, 8.2.2, and 8.3.0.

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Advisories
Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-46wh-pxpv-q5gq express-rate-limit: IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses bypass per-client rate limiting on servers with dual-stack network
Fixes

Solution

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Workaround

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History

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 05:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description express-rate-limit is a basic rate-limiting middleware for Express. In versions starting from 8.0.0 and prior to versions 8.0.2, 8.1.1, 8.2.2, and 8.3.0, the default keyGenerator in express-rate-limit applies IPv6 subnet masking (/56 by default) to all addresses that net.isIPv6() returns true for. This includes IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses (::ffff:x.x.x.x), which Node.js returns as request.ip on dual-stack servers. Because the first 80 bits of all IPv4-mapped addresses are zero, a /56 (or any /32 to /80) subnet mask produces the same network key (::/56) for every IPv4 client. This collapses all IPv4 traffic into a single rate-limit bucket: one client exhausting the limit causes HTTP 429 for all other IPv4 clients. This issue has been patched in versions 8.0.2, 8.1.1, 8.2.2, and 8.3.0.
Title express-rate-limit: IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses bypass per-client rate limiting (all IPv4 clients share one bucket on dual-stack servers)
Weaknesses CWE-770
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 7.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'}


Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-03-07T05:19:53.932Z

Reserved: 2026-03-05T21:06:44.606Z

Link: CVE-2026-30827

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-03-07T06:16:10.507

Modified: 2026-03-07T06:16:10.507

Link: CVE-2026-30827

cve-icon Redhat

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cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

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Weaknesses