GHSA-m69w-p7m4-585j
Open WebUI: Unauthenticated endpoint can trigger embedding generation (cost/DoS)
Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| PyPI | open-webui | < 0.8.0 | 0.8.0 |
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
### Summary
GET `/api/v1/memories/ef` is accessible without authentication and executes `request.app.state.EMBEDDING_FUNCTION(...)`. This allows any unauthenticated caller to trigger embedding generation which can lead to direct cost exposure if a paid provider is used.
Code reference: `backend/open_webui/routers/memories.py` (@router.get("/ef") -> calls `request.app.state.EMBEDDING_FUNCTION("hello world"))`.
### Details
GET `/api/v1/memories/ef` is reachable without authentication and triggers request.app.state.EMBEDDING_FUNCTION("hello world"). This crosses an intended security boundary by allowing unauthenticated users to invoke potentially expensive embedding computation and/or paid upstream embedding APIs.
### PoC
1. Start Open WebUI in default configuration (no special env hardening; default ENABLE_MEMORIES is true).
2. From an unauthenticated client (no cookies/Authorization header), call:
curl -i http://\<host\>:\<port\>/api/v1/memories/ef
3. Observe the server performs embedding generation and returns a response like:
- HTTP 200 with JSON containing the result.
How it can be abused / attacker actions:
- Send repeated requests to `/api/v1/memories/ef` to:
- consume CPU/GPU resources (DoS)
- generate sustained outbound usage to embedding providers if configured (cost + rate-limit exhaustion)
- degrade latency/availability for legitimate users
### Impact
If embeddings are configured to use paid/remote providers (OpenAI/Azure/etc), an attacker can generate unlimited requests and incur charges.
## Resolution
Fixed in commit [e5035ea31](https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/commit/e5035ea31e179977e805a7032c979ff59a71860a), first released in **v0.8.0** (Feb 2026). The `/api/v1/memories/ef` route was removed entirely. It was a diagnostic/debug-style endpoint that hard-coded `"hello world"` through the embedding function without any authentication dependency; there was no legitimate caller that depended on it, so deletion was the cleaner fix than retrofitting auth. Users on `>= 0.8.0` are not affected.
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.
- https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/security/advisories/GHSA-m69w-p7m4-585j
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-45667
- https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/commit/e5035ea31e179977e805a7032c979ff59a71860a
- https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui
- https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/releases/tag/v0.8.0