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Mastodon Attackers Can Perform Remote Account Impersonation

By

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Access Point Consulting

Summary

There is a vulnerability present in Mastodon, an open-source network server. It is identified as CVE-2024-23832 with a CVSS score of 9.4 according to CNA GitHub. This vulnerability is a result of insufficient origin validation allowing attackers to impersonate and take over any remote account.

Impact Assessment

This vulnerability can impact Integrity and Availability to a high degree and has a critical CVSS score of 9.4 meaning the vulnerability will have a high impact if exploited.

Affected Software

Every Mastodon version prior to 3.5.17 is vulnerable, as well as 4.0.x versions prior to 4.0.13, 4.1.x version prior to 4.1.13, and 4.2.x versions prior to 4.2.5.

What It Means for You

Identify if you or your organization manages any Mastodon instances, if so, follow remediation steps.

Remediation

It is advised by the vendor to update to version 4.2.5 of Mastodon, this can be done through a step-by-step process outlined in this article.

Business Implications

Depending on the account taken over from exploiting this vulnerability, the implications for a business could vary. Mastodon is typically used as a sort of social media, so it is possible an attacker could take over a remote account of an administrator or an individual of high standing in the Mastodon instance and perform phishing attacks or convince members to download malware. This could result in a loss of reputation and data at the very least.

Access Point Technology Recommends

Patch: Patching the Mastodon instance to the latest version is the only remediation or mitigation that can be provided for this vulnerability. Please follow the article linked above detailing on how to update Mastodon to the latest version.

Follow Advisory: If you or your organization requires more detail or would like to learn more about this vulnerability, Mastodon will update their advisory on the 15th of February with more details on this vulnerability.

Associated Bulletins

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-23832

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/1726085db5cd73dd30953da858f9887bcc90b958

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/security/advisories/GHSA-3fjr-858r-92rw

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