NodeBB does not bind the claimed author of an inbound...
High severity
Unreviewed
Published
Jul 1, 2026
to the GitHub Advisory Database
•
Updated Jul 1, 2026
Description
Published by the National Vulnerability Database
Jul 1, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database
Jul 1, 2026
Last updated
Jul 1, 2026
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.
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