Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
Mastodon instances through 4.0.2 can be pushed into service disruption by attacker-created bot accounts that trigger runaway federated message processing. The business impact is availability loss: overloaded background queues can delay or prevent normal server activity.
Executive priority
Treat as a high-priority availability risk for Mastodon-operated services. It does not indicate data theft or code execution, but sustained queue exhaustion can disrupt service and create operational incident response costs.
Technical view
The issue is a network-reachable denial of service tied to uncontrolled recursion in Mastodon federation handling. Attackers can create bot accounts that follow attacker-controlled accounts on other servers associated with wildcard DNS A records, causing a large Sidekiq pull queue.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most relevant to Mastodon servers running versions through 4.0.2, especially public federated instances that process remote follows and messages through Sidekiq.
Exploitation context
The bundle does not show CISA KEV listing or confirmed active exploitation. The described attack requires attacker-controlled accounts and remote servers, but the CVSS vector indicates network access, no privileges, and no user interaction.
Researcher notes
The core weakness maps to CWE-674, uncontrolled recursion. Evidence is limited to the CVE description and listed public references; affected version detail is clear, but the source bundle does not provide a named fixed release or operational workaround.
Mitigation direction
- Identify Mastodon instances running version 4.0.2 or earlier.
- Check Mastodon vendor release notes and security guidance for the fixed version.
- Prioritize upgrading affected public federated instances after confirming vendor guidance.
- Monitor Sidekiq queue size and worker health until remediation is complete.
- Review federation controls for suspicious remote servers and bot-account patterns.
Validation and detection
- Inventory Mastodon versions across production, staging, and hosted instances.
- Check Sidekiq pull queues for abnormal sustained growth.
- Review federation logs for repeated activity from suspicious remote servers.
- Look for bursts of newly created bot accounts following remote attacker-controlled accounts.
- Confirm remediation by verifying version and queue stability after upgrade.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-674: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2022-46405 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- High
- CVSS
- 7.5 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H3.93.6Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
7.5HighVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://borg.social/notes/98bcoo2t1nCVE reference
- https://hackmd.io/rD9nsTz1QeuPT-erxqjY-ACVE reference
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Uncontrolled Recursion
Uncontrolled Recursion represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.