Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub. Mastodon versions before v4.3.18, v4.4.12, and v4.5.5 do not have a limit on the maximum number of poll options for remote posts, allowing attackers to create polls with a very large amount of options, greatly increasing resource consumption. Depending on the number of poll options, an attacker can cause disproportionate resource usage in both Mastodon servers and clients, potentially causing Denial of Service either server-side or client-side. Mastodon versions v4.5.5, v4.4.12, v4.3.18 are patched.
Advisories

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Fixes

Solution

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Workaround

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History

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 02:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub. Mastodon versions before v4.3.18, v4.4.12, and v4.5.5 do not have a limit on the maximum number of poll options for remote posts, allowing attackers to create polls with a very large amount of options, greatly increasing resource consumption. Depending on the number of poll options, an attacker can cause disproportionate resource usage in both Mastodon servers and clients, potentially causing Denial of Service either server-side or client-side. Mastodon versions v4.5.5, v4.4.12, v4.3.18 are patched.
Title Mastodon vulnerable to Denial of Service from a single post (client/server)
Weaknesses CWE-770
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 7.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'}


Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-01-22T01:51:37.430Z

Reserved: 2026-01-19T14:49:06.313Z

Link: CVE-2026-23962

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-01-22T03:15:46.400

Modified: 2026-01-22T03:15:46.400

Link: CVE-2026-23962

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses