Executive Summary

CVE-2025-59949 is a vulnerability in FreshRSS versions prior to 1.27.1 involving a logout Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attack triggered via the <track src> HTML element in RSS feeds. The vulnerability arises because the <track src> element was not lazy-loaded, allowing attackers to embed malicious HTML in feeds that cause the client to automatically make HTTP requests to attacker-controlled URLs. This can force a user to be logged out without their consent by exploiting the logout functionality through crafted requests. The issue was fixed by implementing lazy loading for the <track src> element and modifying the authentication flow to prevent logout CSRF attacks. [1, 3, 4]

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Impact Analysis

This vulnerability can impact you by allowing an attacker to remotely force a logout of your FreshRSS session without your consent, causing a denial of service (DoS) by disrupting your access. The attack requires no privileges or user interaction beyond loading a malicious feed, making it relatively easy to exploit. Additionally, the vulnerability can lead to unintended HTTP requests to attacker-controlled domains, potentially leaking sensitive information. [1, 3]

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Detection Guidance

Detection of this vulnerability involves monitoring for unexpected HTTP requests triggered by the loading of malicious feeds containing the `<track src>` element that causes automatic external resource fetching. Specifically, you can look for unusual outbound HTTP requests to attacker-controlled domains originating from your FreshRSS instance. Additionally, monitoring for unexpected logout events or session resets may indicate exploitation attempts. Since the vulnerability involves CSRF on logout, inspecting HTTP logs for suspicious requests to logout URLs with unusual parameters (e.g., `u` parameter in URLs like `/i/?c=auth&a=login&u=x`) can help detect attacks. Commands to assist detection could include network traffic analysis tools such as `tcpdump` or `wireshark` to capture outbound HTTP requests, and log inspection commands like `grep` on FreshRSS access logs to find suspicious logout or login requests. For example: 1. `tcpdump -i eth0 -A 'tcp port 80 or tcp port 443' | grep 'attacker-domain.com'` to detect requests to suspicious domains. 2. `grep 'c=auth&a=login' /path/to/freshrss/logs/access.log` to find suspicious login/logout requests. 3. Monitoring session logs or application logs for unexpected user logout events. However, no specific detection commands are provided in the resources. [1, 3]

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Mitigation Strategies

Immediate mitigation steps include upgrading FreshRSS to version 1.27.1 or later, where the vulnerability is patched. The fix involves implementing lazy loading for the `<track src>` element to prevent automatic external resource loading and modifying the authentication flow to prevent logout CSRF attacks. Additionally, disabling or removing the unsafe autologin feature by refactoring it out of the core application and into a separate extension reduces the attack surface. Ensuring that settings related to lazy loading and unsafe login are properly configured and that the application is updated to include the security patches from pull requests #7997 and #7999 is critical. In summary: 1. Upgrade FreshRSS to version 1.27.1 or newer. 2. Apply all related security patches, including those preventing logout CSRF. 3. Disable or isolate unsafe autologin features. 4. Review and harden configuration settings related to authentication and resource loading. [1, 2, 4]

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Compliance Impact

The provided resources do not contain information regarding the impact of CVE-2025-59949 on compliance with common standards and regulations such as GDPR or HIPAA.

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