CVE-2026-72914: Mastodon: Exhausting data by an unauthenticated request to the admin retention API

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.

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack vector

Network

Complexity

Low

Privileges

None

User interaction

None

Confidentiality

None

Integrity

None

Availability

High

Scope

Unchanged

Exploitation

Is it being used?

Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.8% · higher than 57% of CVEs

Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet

CISA KEVNot listed

Ransomware campaign useNot known

Affected products

Which versions

MA

mastodon · mastodon

< 4.4.21; >= 4.5.0-beta.1, < 4.5.14; >= 4.6.0-beta.1, < 4.6.4 · source: vendor