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CVE-2023-42452

Mastodon vulnerable to Stored XSS through the translation feature

Published
Last modified
published
Not listed in CISA KEV
Fix
Fixed in 4.0.10, 4.1.8, 4.2.0-rc2
None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
  • Exploitation: none
  • Automatable: no
  • Technical impact: partial

Summary

Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub. In versions on the 4.x branch prior to versions 4.0.10, 4.2.8, and 4.2.0-rc2, under certain conditions, attackers can abuse the translation feature to bypass the server-side HTML sanitization, allowing unescaped HTML to execute in the browser. The impact is limited thanks to Mastodon's strict Content Security Policy, blocking inline scripts, etc. However a CSP bypass or loophole could be exploited to execute malicious XSS. Furthermore, it requires user interaction, as this can only occur upon clicking the “Translate” button on a malicious post. Versions 4.0.10, 4.2.8, and 4.2.0-rc2 contain a patch for this issue.

Timeline

  1. CVE published
  2. CISA SSVC assessment

    Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial

  3. Record last updated

Affected versions

  • mastodon mastodon

    From 4.0.0 · fixed in 4.0.10; From 4.1.0 · fixed in 4.1.8; From 4.2.0-beta1 · fixed in 4.2.0-rc2

References 2

GitHub · mastodon/mastodon