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OpenAdvisories
High · 7.5 CVE-2023-36461 EUVD-2023-40423

Mastodon vulnerable to Denial of Service through slow HTTP responses

Published Jul 6, 2023 · Updated Feb 13, 2025 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub. When performing outgoing HTTP queries, Mastodon sets a timeout on individual read operations. Prior to versions 3.5.9, 4.0.5, and 4.1.3, a malicious server can indefinitely extend the duration of the response through slowloris-type attacks. This vulnerability can be used to keep all Mastodon workers busy for an extended duration of time, leading to the server becoming unresponsive. Versions 3.5.9, 4.0.5, and 4.1.3 contain a patch for this issue.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
mastodon mastodon < 3.5.9, >= 4.0.0, < 4.0.5, >= 4.1.0, < 4.1.3 —

References