CVE-2026-58593CWE-290CWE-345

NodeBB - ActivityPub Author Spoofing via Unvalidated attributedTo Mapped to Local User

High · published July 1, 2026

CVSS v4.0
8.7
EPSS
0%
Percentile
20.4
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v4.0
8.7 · HIGH
Vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
EPSS
0.00290 · 20.4th percentile
Weaknesses
CWE-290 · Authentication Bypass by Spoofing; CWE-345 · Insufficient Verification of Data Authenticity
Published
2026-07-01T19:27Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 01 JUL 19:27Z
    NodeBB - ActivityPub Author Spoofing via Unvalidated attributedTo Mapped to Local User
    cvelistv5