CVE-2025-31482
📋 TL;DR
FreshRSS versions before 1.26.2 contain a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability that allows a malicious RSS feed entry to repeatedly log out a user. This causes denial of service for affected users by preventing them from staying logged into their FreshRSS instance. Only users who subscribe to or fetch malicious RSS feeds are affected.
💻 Affected Systems
- FreshRSS
📦 What is this software?
Freshrss by Freshrss
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Targeted users are persistently logged out and unable to access their RSS feeds, effectively denying them service until they stop fetching the malicious feed.
Likely Case
Users who subscribe to compromised or malicious RSS feeds experience repeated logout sessions and degraded usability.
If Mitigated
With proper CSRF protections and feed validation, impact is minimal as legitimate feeds won't trigger the vulnerability.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires the victim to fetch a malicious RSS feed entry; no authentication bypass is involved.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 1.26.2
Vendor Advisory: https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS/security/advisories/GHSA-vpmc-3fv2-jmgp
Restart Required: No
Instructions:
1. Backup your FreshRSS installation and database. 2. Download FreshRSS 1.26.2 or later from the official repository. 3. Replace the existing installation files with the new version. 4. Clear browser cache if experiencing issues.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Disable external feed fetching
allTemporarily prevent fetching of external RSS feeds to avoid triggering the vulnerability
Use trusted feeds only
allLimit RSS subscriptions to known, trusted sources until patched
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement web application firewall rules to block suspicious RSS feed patterns
- Monitor user logout events and investigate frequent occurrences
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check FreshRSS version in the web interface or by examining the installation directoryCheck Version:
Check the bottom of any FreshRSS web page or examine the constants.php file for version informationVerify Fix Applied:
After updating, verify version shows 1.26.2 or later and test that legitimate RSS feeds no longer cause logout issues📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Frequent user logout events
- Failed authentication attempts from valid users
- Errors related to session handling
Network Indicators:
- Unusual RSS feed requests from user sessions
- Patterns of repeated authentication requests
SIEM Query:
source="freshrss.log" AND ("logout" OR "session expired") AND count by user > threshold