NodeBB does not bind the claimed author of an inbound ActivityPub object to the authenticated...
🔗 CVE IDs covered (1)
📋 Description
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.
🔗 References (5)
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-58593
- https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/blob/v4.13.2/src/activitypub/mocks.js
- https://github.com/bikini/exploitarium/tree/main/nodebb-activitypub-attributedto-local-uid-spoof-poc
- https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nodebb-activitypub-author-spoofing-via-unvalidated-attributedto-mapped-to-local-user
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-8m27-grg5-27vj