CVE-2026-72914

Mastodon: Exhausting data by an unauthenticated request to the admin retention API

HIGH
7.5
CVSS Score
Published: August 10, 2026 at 09:13 PM UTC
Updated: September 9, 2026 at 09:07 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorMastodon

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Severity
HIGH7.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.8%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub. Prior to 4.4.21, 4.5.14, 4.6.4, and 4.7.0-beta.1, the administrative statistics endpoints handled by Api::V1::Admin::MeasuresController and Api::V1::Admin::RetentionController checked authorization only after beginning expensive calculations. Anonymous callers could submit keys, start_at, and end_at parameters that caused long-running SQL queries in Admin::Metrics::Measure, Admin::Metrics::Retention, and Admin::Metrics::Dimension::BaseDimension, allowing repeated requests to exhaust server resources. This issue is fixed in versions 4.4.21, 4.5.14, 4.6.4, and 4.7.0-beta.1.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 4.4.21v < 4.5.14v < 4.6.4
Affected range stops below 4.4.21, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 4.5.14, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 4.6.4, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet, and no fixed version or vendor advisory is recorded against it.

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitAutomatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

7.5HIGHGitHub_M
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusDEFERRED
CWE
CWE-405CWE-770

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