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OpenAdvisories
Medium · 6.5 CVE-2026-54740 EUVD-2026-62844

Lemmy: Lower-ranked federated moderator can remove higher-ranked moderators

Published Aug 19, 2026 · Updated Aug 20, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

Lemmy is a link aggregator and forum for the fediverse. Prior to 0.19.19 and 1.0.0-alpha.18, a lower-ranked remote moderator can remove a higher-ranked moderator by sending a signed ActivityPub Remove activity to the target instance. The local API uses LocalUser::is_higher_mod_or_admin_check to enforce moderator rank, but CollectionRemove::verify in crates/apub/activities/src/community/collection_remove.rs only calls verify_mod_action. CollectionRemove::receive dereferences self.object as an ApubPerson, creates a CommunityModeratorForm, and calls CommunityActions::leave without checking that the actor outranks the moderator identified by the object field. In communities with federated moderators, a junior moderator can therefore strip senior moderators from the community moderator list even though the local API rejects the same action. This issue is fixed in versions 0.19.19 and 1.0.0-alpha.18.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
LemmyNet lemmy < 0.19.19, >= 1.0.0-alpha.0, < 1.0.0-alpha.18 —

References