Rate-limit bypass via spoofed client IP
Published Aug 19, 2026 · Updated Aug 19, 2026
Rate-limit bypass in Lemmy before 0.19.19 and 1.0.0-beta.1 allows remote attackers to evade request throttling via X-Forwarded-For. In crates/utils/src/rate_limit/mod.rs, raw_ip_key uses actix-web ConnectionInfo::realip_remote_addr, which trusts the first X-Forwarded-For value; Lemmy's bundled nginx config appends the real client address after any client-supplied value with $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for, so the attacker controls the rate-limit bucket key. Unauthenticated requests through the default reverse-proxy path are enough to rotate spoofed addresses across registration, login, posting, comment, search, image-upload, and import endpoints, enabling brute-force attempts, spam, scraping, and excess uploads without compromising code execution or stored data.
Summary
What happened
Rate-limit bypass in Lemmy before 0.19.19 and 1.0.0-beta.1 allows remote attackers to evade request throttling via X-Forwarded-For. In crates/utils/src/rate_limit/mod.rs, raw_ip_key uses actix-web ConnectionInfo::realip_remote_addr, which trusts the first X-Forwarded-For value; Lemmy's bundled nginx config appends the real client address after any client-supplied value with $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for, so the attacker controls the rate-limit bucket key. Unauthenticated requests through the default reverse-proxy path are enough to rotate spoofed addresses across registration, login, posting, comment, search, image-upload, and import endpoints, enabling brute-force attempts, spam, scraping, and excess uploads without compromising code execution or stored data.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-54738
- Published
- Aug 19, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 19, 2026
- Vendor
- LemmyNet
- Product
- Lemmy
- Classifications
- CWE-799, T1110
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Aug 19, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 19, 2026Record 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=< 0.19.19
- Affected versionversion=>= 1.0.0-alpha.5, < 1.0.0-beta.1
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.
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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