Privilege escalation via unenforced OAuth scopes
Published Feb 12, 2024 · Updated May 7, 2025
Improper authorization in Pixelfed 0.10.4 through 0.11.9 allows remote attackers to perform privileged API actions with read-only tokens. API controllers authenticated bearer tokens and checked resource ownership or administrator status without enforcing the OAuth scopes required by each endpoint. Exploitation requires a user-approved or leaked access token; the token can then write data or change administrative settings, including federation.
Summary
What happened
Improper authorization in Pixelfed 0.10.4 through 0.11.9 allows remote attackers to perform privileged API actions with read-only tokens. API controllers authenticated bearer tokens and checked resource ownership or administrator status without enforcing the OAuth scopes required by each endpoint. Exploitation requires a user-approved or leaked access token; the token can then write data or change administrative settings, including federation.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2024-25108
- Published
- Feb 12, 2024
- Updated
- May 7, 2025
- Vendor
- Pixelfed
- Product
- Pixelfed
- Classifications
- CWE-285, CWE-863, CWE-280, T1190
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Feb 12, 2024CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 7, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=>= 0.10.4, < 0.11.11
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- Upstream OAuth-scope bypass proof of conceptproof of concept · demonstrated
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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