CVE-2020-26257 MEDIUM

CVE-2020-26257: Denial of service attack via incorrect parameters to federation APIs

Vendor Matrix-Org
Product synapse
Weakness CWE-400
Published December 9, 2020
Last update August 4, 2024

CVSS base score

6.5/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required Low
User interaction None
Confidentiality None
Integrity None

CVSS vector

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

What the vulnerability does

01Description

Matrix is an ecosystem for open federated Instant Messaging and VoIP. Synapse is a reference "homeserver" implementation of Matrix. A malicious or poorly-implemented homeserver can inject malformed events into a room by specifying a different room id in the path of a `/send_join`, `/send_leave`, `/invite` or `/exchange_third_party_invite` request. This can lead to a denial of service in which future events will not be correctly sent to other servers over federation. This affects any server which accepts federation requests from untrusted servers. The Matrix Synapse reference implementation before version 1.23.1 the implementation is vulnerable to this injection attack. Issue is fixed in version 1.23.1. As a workaround homeserver administrators could limit access to the federation API to trusted servers (for example via `federation_domain_whitelist`).

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

December 9, 2020 CVE published
August 4, 2024 Record updated