CVE-2023-42452
Mastodon vulnerable to Stored XSS through the translation feature
- Published
- Updated
- Reserved
- Assigned by
- GitHub_M
Description
Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub. In versions on the 4.x branch prior to versions 4.0.10, 4.2.8, and 4.2.0-rc2, under certain conditions, attackers can abuse the translation feature to bypass the server-side HTML sanitization, allowing unescaped HTML to execute in the browser. The impact is limited thanks to Mastodon's strict Content Security Policy, blocking inline scripts, etc. However a CSP bypass or loophole could be exploited to execute malicious XSS. Furthermore, it requires user interaction, as this can only occur upon clicking the “Translate” button on a malicious post. Versions 4.0.10, 4.2.8, and 4.2.0-rc2 contain a patch for this issue.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub_MCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | Medium6.1 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | Medium5.4 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.44% · top 62% of all CVEs (6 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 6.1.
Weakness
Affected products
References (2)
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/security/advisories/GHSA-2693-xr3m-jhqr (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/ff32475f5f4a84ebf9619e7eef5bf8b4c075d0e2 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://trackcve.app/cve/CVE-2023-42452)Record last updated .