SEPTEMBER 18, 2026
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Case File

CVE-2026-54738

MEDIUM · CVSS 6.5 EPSS 0.43% Public Exploit

Source: NVD + CISA KEV + EPSS · Published 2026-08-19 · Last synced 2026-09-18

CyberRota Analysis

AI-Generated

Lemmy's implementation in versions prior to 0.19.19 and 1.0.0-beta.1 is vulnerable due to improper handling of the X-Forwarded-For header, allowing unauthenticated attackers to spoof client addresses and bypass rate limits on various API endpoints. This can lead to excessive account creation, brute-force attacks, and spam activities. Organizations using Lemmy with Nginx or Docker should prioritize upgrading to the patched versions to mitigate these risks.

Public Exploit Signal

A public exploit, PoC, GitHub repository or Metasploit reference was detected for this CVE.

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CVE
CVE-2026-54738
Severity
MEDIUM
CVSS
6.5
EPSS
0.43%
Nginx Docker

Original NVD Description

Lemmy is a link aggregator and forum for the fediverse. Prior to 0.19.19 and 1.0.0-beta.1, actix-web ConnectionInfo::realip_remote_addr reads the first value of X-Forwarded-For as the client address used by raw_ip_key in crates/utils/src/rate_limit/mod.rs. Lemmy's bundled docker/nginx.conf uses $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for instead of $remote_addr, which appends the real client address to an X-Forwarded-For value supplied by the client. An unauthenticated attacker can therefore place a different spoofed address first on each request and receive a new rate-limit bucket, bypassing limits on POST /api/v4/account/auth/register, POST /api/v4/account/auth/login, POST /api/v4/post, POST /api/v4/comment, GET /api/v4/search, POST /api/v4/image, and POST /api/v4/account/import_settings. This permits excessive account creation, brute-force attempts, spam, scraping, uploads, and repeated imports. This issue is fixed in versions 0.19.19 and 1.0.0-beta.1.