---
id: CVE-2026-71416
title: Headroom compresses data before the data reaches a large language model
summary: >-
  Headroom compresses data before the data reaches a large language model. Prior
  to version 0.35.0, the Headroom WebSocket server does not validate the
  `Origin` header of incoming client WebSocket requests before forwarding the
  request to …
severity: high
cvss: 8.8
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H'
cwe:
  - CWE-287
  - CWE-1385
vendor: headroomlabs-ai
product: headroom
affected:
  - headroom < 0.35.0
published: '2026-09-11'
updated: '2026-09-11'
sourceUpdated: '2026-09-11T15:17:03.373'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-71416'
references:
  - url: 'https://github.com/headroomlabs-ai/headroom/releases/tag/v0.35.0'
    label: security-advisories@github.com
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/headroomlabs-ai/headroom/security/advisories/GHSA-h46j-26q3-rggf
    label: security-advisories@github.com
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/headroomlabs-ai/headroom/security/advisories/GHSA-h46j-26q3-rggf
    label: 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0
tags:
  - nvd
  - cve.org
  - exploit-available
exploitAvailable: true
ssvc:
  exploitation: poc
  automatable: 'no'
  technicalImpact: total
  timestamp: '2026-09-11T14:31:54.198576Z'
ingestedAt: '2026-09-12T13:45:54.272Z'
epss: 0.00219
epssPercentile: 0.10982
---

## Overview

Headroom compresses data before the data reaches a large language model. Prior to version 0.35.0, the Headroom WebSocket server does not validate the `Origin` header of incoming client WebSocket requests before forwarding the request to the upstream server, allowing malicious WebSocket clients to perform arbitrary LLM requests without authentication. This can be exploited by a malicious WebSocket client executed in a traditional or headless browser such as lightpanda, if the browser has access to the Headroom proxy and the OpenAI API key is stored in the `OPENAI_API_KEY` environment variable. Version 0.35.0 fixes the issue.

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.