🛡️ CVE-2021-43786 — nodebb

🔴 CVSS 9.5 — Critical ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-287 OSV
9.5
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

API token verification can be bypassed in NodeBB

Impact

Incorrect logic present in the token verification step unintentionally allowed master token access to the API.

Patches

The vulnerability has been patch as of v1.18.5.

Workarounds

Cherry-pick commit hash 04dab1d550cdebf4c1567bca9a51f8b9ca48a500 to receive this patch in lieu of a full upgrade.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached over the network, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs no privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality high, integrity high, availability high.

Weakness class

CVE-2021-43786 is classified as CWE-287: Improper Authentication. The identity of the caller is not established correctly, so an attacker can act as another user.

Affected software

CVE-2021-43786 is recorded against 1 package.

  • nodebb

Timeline and source

Published on 30 November 2021 and last revised on 8 July 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from OSV.

References

github.com (Web)
nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
github.com (Web)
blog.sonarsource.com (Web)
github.com (Package)
github.com (Web)

Details

Severity CRITICAL
CVSS Score 9.5
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE CWE-287
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source OSV
Published 2021-11-30
Updated 2026-08-12
Modified 2026-07-08
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
nodebb — —

Similar Threats

Exploit Protection

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CVE-2021-43786 carries CVSS 9.5 Critical rating. BotEraser checks your installation against this and other known CVE records, and blocks IPs associated with exploit activity.

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