CVE-2026-72916
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, PrivateAddressCheck.private_address? in app/lib/private_address_check.rb normalized IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses but did not recognize IPv4-compatible IPv6 addresses with IPAddr#ipv4_compat?. An attacker could supply an address in the omitted range to bypass the ALLOWED_PRIVATE_ADDRESSES protection and make Mastodon send HTTP requests to loopback interfaces, potentially accessing private resources and services. Exploitation requires a system that supports the obsolete IPv4-compatible IPv6 mechanism. This issue is fixed in versions 4.4.21, 4.5.14, 4.6.4, and 4.7.0-beta.1.
Predictions
Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.
Mitigations
No mitigations published for this CVE yet.
The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.
Propose a mitigation on Community Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here withsource_tier=community-verified.
References
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/18c61f286f1f5718a8f517940ba384866ffa3892
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/467c933459c7d0e5513475b9e4888afaedfb1074
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/930aa9fee26bf9eaefe27826fa1061288d83373b
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/da47a1bd3cd07935d7ca55a1f4f1a76f7f167e0d
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.4.21
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.5.14
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.6.4
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.7.0-beta.1
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/security/advisories/GHSA-vwhj-3g83-v276
CWEs
CWE-918 CWE-1286
Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.
Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.