High 7.5Published Aug 10, 2026

CVE-2026-72914Mastodon: Exhausting data by an unauthenticated request to the admin retention API

Updated under an hour ago (2026-10-19 08:30 UTC)

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No exploitation reported and no EPSS estimate yet.

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Exploited in the last 30 days

Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub. Prior to 4.4.21, 4.5.14, 4.6.4, and 4.7.0-beta.1, the administrative statistics endpoints handled by Api::V1::Admin::MeasuresController and Api::V1::Admin::RetentionController checked authorization only after beginning expensive calculations. Anonymous callers could submit keys, start_at, and end_at parameters that caused long-running SQL queries in Admin::Metrics::Measure, Admin::Metrics::Retention, and Admin::Metrics::Dimension::BaseDimension, allowing repeated requests to exhaust server resources. This issue is fixed in versions 4.4.21, 4.5.14, 4.6.4, and 4.7.0-beta.1.

CVSS: 7.5 HIGH (v3.1, CNA)CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Weakness (CWE): CWE-405, CWE-770
Known exploited: Not in CISA's KEV catalog
EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days): Not loaded for this CVE
Assigned by: GitHub_M
NVD analysis: Deferred
Record last updated: Aug 11, 2026
First seen by InfoSec Signals: Oct 9, 2026

Affected products

Affected products

mastodon mastodon mastodon:mastodon (from the name)	before 4.4.21; from 4.5.0-beta.1, < 4.5.14; from 4.6.0-beta.1, < 4.6.4	CNA record

References

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/security/advisories/GHSA-7jvv-fhmg-wpfwx-refsource-confirm
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/18c61f286f1f5718a8f517940ba384866ffa3892x-refsource-misc
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/467c933459c7d0e5513475b9e4888afaedfb1074x-refsource-misc
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/930aa9fee26bf9eaefe27826fa1061288d83373bx-refsource-misc
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/da47a1bd3cd07935d7ca55a1f4f1a76f7f167e0dx-refsource-misc
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.4.21x-refsource-misc
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.5.14x-refsource-misc
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.6.4x-refsource-misc
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.7.0-beta.1x-refsource-misc

The CVE record on cve.org NVD's entry

The CVE record is authoritative. Products marked “from the name” were identified from the CNA's free-text names, not a CPE, and are matched less certainly. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.