CVE-2025-54879 (GCVE-0-2025-54879)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2025-08-05 23:39 – Updated: 2025-08-06 20:32
VLAI?
Title
Mastodon e‑mail throttle misconfiguration allows unlimited email confirmations against unconfirmed emails
Summary
Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub Mastodon which facilitates LDAP configuration for authentication. In versions 3.1.5 through 4.2.24, 4.3.0 through 4.3.11 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.3, Mastodon's rate-limiting system has a critical configuration error where the email-based throttle for confirmation emails incorrectly checks the password reset path instead of the confirmation path, effectively disabling per-email limits for confirmation requests. This allows attackers to bypass rate limits by rotating IP addresses and send unlimited confirmation emails to any email address, as only a weak IP-based throttle (25 requests per 5 minutes) remains active. The vulnerability enables denial-of-service attacks that can overwhelm mail queues and facilitate user harassment through confirmation email spam. This is fixed in versions 4.2.24, 4.3.11 and 4.4.3.
Severity ?
5.3 (Medium)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CWE
  • CWE-770 - Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
Assigner
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version
mastodon mastodon Affected: >= 3.1.5, < 4.2.24
Affected: >= 4.3.0, < 4.3.11
Affected: >= 4.4.0, < 4.4.3
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  • Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
  • Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
  • Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
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  • Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
  • Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.



Detection rules are retrieved from Rulezet.