CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2023-42450 — Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub

High CVSS 7.5

Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub. Starting in version 4.2.0-beta1 and prior to version 4.2.0-rc2, by crafting specific input, attackers can inject arbitrary data into HTTP requests issued by Mastodon. This can be used to perform confused deputy attacks if the server configuration includes `ALLOWED_PRIVATE_ADDRESSES` to allow access to local exploitable services. Version 4.2.0-rc2 has a patch for the issue.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.5 (3.1)
Published
2023-09-19
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-113, CWE-918

Affected products

  • joinmastodon / mastodon / 4.2.0

Showing 1 representative product identities from 4 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Server-side request forgery and unintended proxying

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Inventory server-side URL fetchers, webhooks, importers, previews, redirects, proxies, and protocol handlers reachable from untrusted input.
  • Map egress paths to internal services, metadata endpoints, loopback, private address space, and privileged control planes.
  • Review DNS resolution, redirect, proxy, credential-forwarding, and URL parsing behavior without requesting sensitive targets.

Remediate safely

  • Replace arbitrary destinations with named integrations or a strict allowlist of schemes, hosts, ports, and paths.
  • Resolve and validate every destination and redirect hop, then enforce egress policy independently of application checks.
  • Remove ambient credentials and sensitive headers from fetchers; apply response size, time, and content limits.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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