Vulnerability in Sysadminsmedia Homebox

CVE-2026-27981

HomeBox is a home inventory and organization system. Prior to 0.24.0, the authentication rate limiter (authRateLimiter) tracks failed attempts per client IP. It determines the client IP by reading, 1. X-Real-IP header, 2. First entry of X-Forwarded-For header, and 3. r.RemoteAddr (TCP connection address). These headers were read unconditionally. An attacker connecting directly to Homebox could forge any value in X-Real-IP, effectively getting a fresh rate limit identity per request. There is a TrustProxy option in the configuration (Options.TrustProxy, default false), but this option was never read by any middleware or rate limiter code. Additionally, chi's middleware.RealIP was applied unconditionally in main.go, overwriting r.RemoteAddr with the forged header value before it reaches any handler. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.24.0.

EPSS: 0.003 (17.8th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.4 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-27981?
CVE-2026-27981 is a high-severity vulnerability in Sysadminsmedia Homebox, classified under Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts. CVSS score: 7.4/10. Published 2026-03-03.
How severe is CVE-2026-27981?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.4 out of 10.