What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-86178: Pixelfed through 0.12.9 Unauthorized Story Access via API

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.4 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-09-05 · updated 2026-09-23
• Weakness: CWE-862

Description

Pixelfed through 0.12.9 fails to validate follower status in StoryComposeController react and comment endpoints, allowing authenticated users to access follower-only stories. Attackers can enumerate sequential story IDs and submit reactions or comments to retrieve story media URLs and author information without following the account.

Affected products

• pixelfed: through 0.12.9

References

• https://github.com/geo-chen/oss/blob/main/Pixelfed.md
• https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed
• https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed/blob/v0.12.9/app/Http/Controllers/StoryComposeController.php#L487-L501
• https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed/blob/v0.12.9/app/Http/Controllers/StoryComposeController.php#L566-L580
• https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed/blob/v0.12.9/routes/web-api.php#L154-L155
• https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/pixelfed-through-0.12.9-unauthorized-story-access-via-api

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