Etherpad is a real-time collaborative editor. From 2.6.0 until 3.1.0, Etherpad's src/node/hooks/express/tokenTransfer.ts uses POST /tokenTransfer to store an author token for transfer between browsers and exposes it through GET /tokenTransfer/{uuid}. Although the record includes createdAt, the transfer has no expiration check, is not removed after successful redemption, and is returned by res.send(tokenData), including the raw author token. An unauthenticated attacker who obtains a transfer UUID can repeatedly redeem it, receive fresh author cookies, read the cleartext token, and impersonate the originating author for pad read and write operations. This issue is fixed in version 3.1.0.

Project Subscriptions

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Advisories
Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-vqfp-p66c-xrp9 ep_etherpad-lite: Device-to-device author-token transfer endpoint is replayable, never expires, and exposes the cleartext author token
Fixes

Solution

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Workaround

No workaround given by the vendor.

History

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 19:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Etherpad is a real-time collaborative editor. From 2.6.0 until 3.1.0, Etherpad's src/node/hooks/express/tokenTransfer.ts uses POST /tokenTransfer to store an author token for transfer between browsers and exposes it through GET /tokenTransfer/{uuid}. Although the record includes createdAt, the transfer has no expiration check, is not removed after successful redemption, and is returned by res.send(tokenData), including the raw author token. An unauthenticated attacker who obtains a transfer UUID can repeatedly redeem it, receive fresh author cookies, read the cleartext token, and impersonate the originating author for pad read and write operations. This issue is fixed in version 3.1.0.
Title Etherpad: Device-to-device author-token transfer endpoint is replayable, never expires, and exposes the cleartext author token
Weaknesses CWE-200
CWE-294
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 6.8, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N'}


Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-08-19T19:30:20.288Z

Reserved: 2026-06-16T14:41:54.578Z

Link: CVE-2026-55088

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-08-19T20:17:17.883

Modified: 2026-08-19T20:17:17.883

Link: CVE-2026-55088

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

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Weaknesses