Skip to content
OpenAdvisories
Medium · 5.3 CVE-2026-27824 EUVD-2026-9057

calibre has IP Ban Bypass via X-Forwarded-For Header Spoofing

Published Feb 27, 2026 · Updated Mar 2, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

calibre is a cross-platform e-book manager for viewing, converting, editing, and cataloging e-books. Prior to version 9.4.0, the calibre Content Server's brute-force protection mechanism uses a ban key derived from both `remote_addr` and the `X-Forwarded-For` header. Since the `X-Forwarded-For` header is read directly from the HTTP request without any validation or trusted-proxy configuration, an attacker can bypass IP-based bans by simply changing or adding this header, rendering the brute-force protection completely ineffective. This is particularly dangerous for calibre servers exposed to the internet, where brute-force protection is the primary defense against credential stuffing and password guessing attacks. Version 9.4.0 contains a fix for the issue.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
kovidgoyal calibre < 9.4.0 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 calibre 9.4.0+ds+~0.10.5-1 —
Debian 13 calibre 8.5.0+ds-1+deb13u2 —
Debian 12 calibre 6.13.0+repack-2+deb12u6 —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 26.10 calibre No fix yet —
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS calibre No fix yet —
Ubuntu 25.10 calibre No fix yet —
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS calibre No fix yet —
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS calibre No fix yet —
Show 3 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS calibre No fix yet —
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS calibre No fix yet —
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS calibre No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Tumbleweed calibre 9.7.0-1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:10587-1

Advisories 1

References