Mastodon vulnerability allows attackers to take over accounts

Mastodon vulnerability allows attackers to take over accounts

February 3, 2024 at 11:21AM

Mastodon, a decentralized social networking platform, has resolved a critical vulnerability, CVE-2024-23832, allowing account impersonation and takeover. The flaw affects earlier versions and is rated 9.4 in CVSS v3.1. Server admins are urged to update to version 4.2.5 to protect users by mid-February. The impact on user security and platform integrity is significant.

The meeting notes detail a critical security vulnerability that has been fixed in the Mastodon platform, a decentralized social networking platform with nearly 12 million users across 11,000 instances. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-23832, allowed attackers to impersonate and take over user accounts. It has a severity rating of 9.4 in CVSS v3.1 and impacts Mastodon versions before 3.5.17, 4.0.13, 4.1.13, and 4.2.5, with the flaw being fixed as of version 4.2.5.

Mastodon has urged all server administrators to upgrade to the fixed version as soon as possible to protect their users from potential account hijacking. Mastodon has also indicated that more technical details about the vulnerability will be shared on February 15, 2024. Additionally, users have been advised to ensure that their instance administrators have upgraded to the safe version by mid-February to mitigate the security risk.

It is crucial to note that in July 2023, Mastodon fixed another critical bug, CVE-2023-36460, also known as ‘TootRoot,’ which allowed attackers to compromise Mastodon servers and access sensitive user information and communications. This highlights the importance of prompt and thorough security measures in the platform to protect users and maintain the integrity of the community.

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