NodeBB 1.18.0 through 4.16.5 Authorization Bypass via /register/complete uid

NodeBB 1.18.0 through 4.16.5 contains an authorization bypass vulnerability that allows unauthenticated visitors to act on other accounts by supplying a uid during POST /register. Attackers can submit an empty email at the /register/complete interstitial to clear a victim's email and confirmation state and revoke all their sessions.

NodeBB < 4.15.0 Stored XSS via ActivityPub emoji tag.icon.url and tag.name

NodeBB before 4.15.0 contains a stored cross-site scripting vulnerability in the renderEmoji function that fails to escape tag.icon.url and tag.name attributes. Attackers can deliver malicious ActivityPub Create/Note objects with crafted emoji tags to inject arbitrary HTML and JavaScript into stored post content, executing code in all viewers' browsers.

NodeBB - ActivityPub Author Spoofing via Unvalidated attributedTo Mapped to Local User

NodeBB does not bind the claimed author of an inbound ActivityPub object to the authenticated remote actor. The inbound middleware verifies the HTTP-signature actor and checks the origin of object.id, but never validates that attributedTo corresponds to the sender. In the object mock, attributedTo is used directly as a uid, and actors.assert silently ignores numeric identifiers (filtering them out without re-deriving the uid), so a federated remote actor can set attributedTo to a bare numeric value such as 1 and have the resulting post or private message created with that local uid as author, including the administrator account. This lets a remote attacker forge posts and direct messages attributed to arbitrary local users. Requires the ActivityPub/federation feature to be enabled.

NodeBB Plugin Emoji 3.2.1 - Arbitrary File Write

NodeBB Plugin Emoji 3.2.1 contains an arbitrary file write vulnerability that allows administrative users to write files to arbitrary system locations through the emoji upload API. Attackers with admin access can craft file upload requests with directory traversal to overwrite system files by manipulating the file path parameter.

NodeBB v4.3.0 is vulnerable to SQL injection in its search-categories API endpoint (/api/v3/search/categories). The search query parameter is not properly sanitized, allowing unauthenticated, remote attackers to inject boolean-based blind and PostgreSQL error-based payloads.

NodeBB 3.6.7 is vulnerable to Incorrect Access Control, e.g., a low-privileged attacker can access the restricted tabs for the Admin group via "isadmin":true.

A persistent cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in NodeBB v3.11.0 allows remote attackers to store arbitrary code in the 'about me' section of their profile.

Account takeover via cryptographically weak PRNG in NodeBB Forum

NodeBB Forum Software is powered by Node.js and supports either Redis, MongoDB, or a PostgreSQL database. It utilizes web sockets for instant interactions and real-time notifications. `utils.generateUUID`, a helper function available in essentially all versions of NodeBB (as far back as v1.0.1 and potentially earlier) used a cryptographically insecure Pseudo-random number generator (`Math.random()`), which meant that a specially crafted script combined with multiple invocations of the password reset functionality could enable an attacker to correctly calculate the reset code for an account they do not have access to. This vulnerability impacts all installations of NodeBB. The vulnerability allows for an attacker to take over any account without the involvement of the victim, and as such, the remediation should be applied immediately (either via NodeBB upgrade or cherry-pick of the specific changeset. The vulnerability has been patched in version 2.x and 1.19.x. There is no known workaround, but the patch sets listed above will fully patch the vulnerability.

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in NodeBB v4.0.4 and before allows remote attackers to store arbitrary code and potentially render the blacklist IP functionality unusable until content is removed via the database.

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in NodeBB v4.0.4 and before allows remote attackers to store arbitrary code in the admin API Access token generator.

Account takeover via prototype vulnerability

NodeBB is an open source Node.js based forum software. Due to a plain object with a prototype being used in socket.io message handling a specially crafted payload can be used to impersonate other users and takeover accounts. This vulnerability has been patched in version 2.6.1. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade may cherry-pick commit `48d143921753914da45926cca6370a92ed0c46b8` into their codebase to patch the exploit.

Account takeover via SSO plugins in NodeBB

NodeBB Forum Software is powered by Node.js and supports either Redis, MongoDB, or a PostgreSQL database. Due to an unnecessarily strict conditional in the code handling the first step of the SSO process, the pre-existing logic that added (and later checked) a nonce was inadvertently rendered opt-in instead of opt-out. This re-exposed a vulnerability in that a specially crafted Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack could theoretically take over another user account during the single sign-on process. The issue has been fully patched in version 1.17.2.

Multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in NodeBB before 0.7 allow remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via vectors related to (1) javascript: or (2) data: URLs.

NodeBB abort cross-site request forgery

A vulnerability, which was classified as problematic, was found in NodeBB up to 2.5.7. This affects an unknown part of the file /register/abort. The manipulation leads to cross-site request forgery. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. Upgrading to version 2.5.8 is able to address this issue. The name of the patch is 2f9d8c350e54543f608d3d4c8e1a49bbb6cdea38. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component. The associated identifier of this vulnerability is VDB-213555.

NodeBB vulnerable to path traversal and code execution via prototype vulnerability

NodeBB is Node.js based forum software. Starting in version 2.5.0 and prior to version 2.8.7, due to the use of the object destructuring assignment syntax in the user export code path, combined with a path traversal vulnerability, a specially crafted payload could invoke the user export logic to arbitrarily execute javascript files on the local disk. This issue is patched in version 2.8.7. As a workaround, site maintainers can cherry pick the fix into their codebase to patch the exploit.

A remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in the xmlrpc.php endpoint of NodeBB Inc NodeBB forum software prior to v1.18.6 allows attackers to execute arbitrary code via crafted XML-RPC requests.

NodeBB Pre-Authentication Denial-of-Service

Denial-of-service in NodeBB <= v2.8.10 allows unauthenticated attackers to trigger a crash, when invoking `eventName.startsWith()` or `eventName.toString()`, while processing Socket.IO messages via crafted Socket.IO messages containing array or object type for the event name respectively.

NodeBB is affected by a Cross-Site WebSocket Hijacking vulnerability due to missing validation of the request origin. Exploitation of this vulnerability allows certain user information to be extracted by attacker.

Path traversal in translator module of NobeBB

Nodebb is an open source Node.js based forum software. Prior to v1.18.5, a path traversal vulnerability was present that allowed users to access JSON files outside of the expected `languages/` directory. The vulnerability has been patched as of v1.18.5. Users are advised to upgrade as soon as possible.

XSS via prototype pollution

Nodebb is an open source Node.js based forum software. In affected versions a prototype pollution vulnerability in the uploader module allowed a malicious user to inject arbitrary data (i.e. javascript) into the DOM, theoretically allowing for an account takeover when used in conjunction with a path traversal vulnerability disclosed at the same time as this report. The vulnerability has been patched as of v1.18.5. Users are advised to upgrade as soon as possible.