NodeBB - ActivityPub Author Spoofing via Unvalidated attributedTo Mapped to Local User
41Vexday Risk Score
No sign of exploitation. It has a public proof of concept.
ssvc Attendcvss 8.7epss 0.2%
exploitation probability
0.2%top 89% of all CVEs
observed exploitation
nono source reports it
1 public exploit(s)
NodeBB does not bind the claimed author of an inbound ActivityPub object to the authenticated remote actor. The inbound middleware verifies the HTTP-signature actor and checks the origin of object.id, but never validates that attributedTo corresponds to the sender. In the object mock, attributedTo is used directly as a uid, and actors.assert silently ignores numeric identifiers (filtering them out without re-deriving the uid), so a federated remote actor can set attributedTo to a bare numeric value such as 1 and have the resulting post or private message created with that local uid as author, including the administrator account. This lets a remote attacker forge posts and direct messages attributed to arbitrary local users. Requires the ActivityPub/federation feature to be enabled.
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Affected products
NodeBB · NodeBBpublic PoCs found — 1
cve_referencegithub.com/bikini/exploitarium/tree/main/nodebb-activitypub-attributedto-local-uid-spoof-pocunverified⚠ Public resources, to assess the exposure of systems you control or are authorized to test. Test only with authorization.
References
https://github.com/bikini/exploitarium/tree/main/nodebb-activitypub-attributedto-local-uid-spoof-pochttps://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/blob/v4.13.2/src/activitypub/mocks.jshttps://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nodebb-activitypub-author-spoofing-via-unvalidated-attributedto-mapped-to-local-user