CVE-2026-27981 HIGH

CVE-2026-27981: HomeBox has an Auth Rate Limit Bypass via IP Spoofing

Vendor Sysadminsmedia
Product homebox
Weakness CWE-307 · Brute force
Published March 3, 2026
Last update March 4, 2026

CVSS base score

7.4/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity High
Privileges required None
User interaction None
Confidentiality High
Integrity High

CVSS vector

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

What the vulnerability does

01Description

HomeBox is a home inventory and organization system. Prior to 0.24.0, the authentication rate limiter (authRateLimiter) tracks failed attempts per client IP. It determines the client IP by reading, 1. X-Real-IP header, 2. First entry of X-Forwarded-For header, and 3. r.RemoteAddr (TCP connection address). These headers were read unconditionally. An attacker connecting directly to Homebox could forge any value in X-Real-IP, effectively getting a fresh rate limit identity per request. There is a TrustProxy option in the configuration (Options.TrustProxy, default false), but this option was never read by any middleware or rate limiter code. Additionally, chi's middleware.RealIP was applied unconditionally in main.go, overwriting r.RemoteAddr with the forged header value before it reaches any handler. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.24.0.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

March 3, 2026 CVE published
March 4, 2026 Record updated