Mastodon: Exhausting data by an unauthenticated request to the admin retention API

MITRE NVD CVE.ORG JSON API

Summary

CVECVE-2026-72914
StatePUBLISHED
AssignerGitHub_M
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2026-08-10 22:17:10 UTC
Updated2026-08-11 14:17:15 UTC
DescriptionMastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub. Prior to 4.4.21, 4.5.14, 4.6.4, and 4.7.0-beta.1, the administrative statistics endpoints handled by Api::V1::Admin::MeasuresController and Api::V1::Admin::RetentionController checked authorization only after beginning expensive calculations. Anonymous callers could submit keys, start_at, and end_at parameters that caused long-running SQL queries in Admin::Metrics::Measure, Admin::Metrics::Retention, and Admin::Metrics::Dimension::BaseDimension, allowing repeated requests to exhaust server resources. This issue is fixed in versions 4.4.21, 4.5.14, 4.6.4, and 4.7.0-beta.1.

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.1 7.5 HIGH from [email protected]

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS: 0.004540000 probability, percentile 0.373630000 (date 2026-08-11)

Problem Types: CWE-405 | CWE-770 | CWE-405 CWE-405: Asymmetric Resource Consumption (Amplification) | CWE-770 CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
3.1[email protected]Secondary7.5HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
3.1CNADECLARED7.5HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA Mastodon Mastodon affected < 4.4.21 Not specified
CNA Mastodon Mastodon affected >= 4.5.0-beta.1, < 4.5.14 Not specified
CNA Mastodon Mastodon affected >= 4.6.0-beta.1, < 4.6.4 Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.5.14 [email protected] github.com
github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/930aa9fee26bf9eaefe27826fa1061288d83... [email protected] github.com
github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/467c933459c7d0e5513475b9e4888afaedfb... [email protected] github.com
github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/18c61f286f1f5718a8f517940ba384866ffa... [email protected] github.com
github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.7.0-beta.1 [email protected] github.com
github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/da47a1bd3cd07935d7ca55a1f4f1a76f7f16... [email protected] github.com
github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.6.4 [email protected] github.com
github.com/mastodon/mastodon/security/advisories/GHSA-7jvv-fhmg-wpfw [email protected] github.com
github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.4.21 [email protected] github.com
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