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Medium

Serendipity: Host Header Injection enables authentication cookie scoping to an attacker-controlled domain

Type: advisorySources: OSV

Serendipity is a PHP-powered weblog engine. In versions 2.6-beta2 and below, the serendipity_setCookie() function in include/functions_config.inc.php uses $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] without validation as the domain parameter of setcookie(). An attacker who can influence the Host header at login time, such as via MITM, reverse proxy misconfiguration, or load balancer manipulation, can force authentication cookies including session tokens and auto-login tokens to be scoped to an attacker-controlled domain. This enables session fixation, token leakage to attacker-controlled infrastructure, and privilege escalation if an admin logs in under a poisoned Host header. This issue has been fixed in version 2.6.0.

Products
Not specified
Affected versions
Not specified
Fixed versions
Not specified
CVEs
CVE-2026-39963
Confirmed fixed CVEs
Not specified
Updated in this feed
3 Nov 2026, 06:04 UTC · Revision 1

Source evidence

Serendipity: Host Header Injection enables authentication cookie scoping to an attacker-controlled domain

core-osv · Original source

Published 14 Apr 2026, 23:31 UTC

Serendipity is a PHP-powered weblog engine. In versions 2.6-beta2 and below, the serendipity_setCookie() function in include/functions_config.inc.php uses $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] without validation as the domain parameter of setcookie(). An attacker who can influence the Host header at login time, such as via MITM, reverse proxy misconfiguration, or load balancer manipulation, can force authentication cookies including session tokens and auto-login tokens to be scoped to an attacker-controlled domain. This enables session fixation, token leakage to attacker-controlled infrastructure, and privilege escalation if an admin logs in under a poisoned Host header. This issue has been fixed in version 2.6.0.

osv:CVE-2026-39963
Complete source record
{
  "id": "bfccadfcb042691b9d6222fd2cdc94ede8cd85e15931fe53522d75ba36353894",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-39963",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "Serendipity: Host Header Injection enables authentication cookie scoping to an attacker-controlled domain",
    "summary": "Serendipity is a PHP-powered weblog engine. In versions 2.6-beta2 and below, the serendipity_setCookie() function in include/functions_config.inc.php uses $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] without validation as the domain parameter of setcookie(). An attacker who can influence the Host header at login time, such as via MITM, reverse proxy misconfiguration, or load balancer manipulation, can force authentication cookies including session tokens and auto-login tokens to be scoped to an attacker-controlled domain. This enables session fixation, token leakage to attacker-controlled infrastructure, and privilege escalation if an admin logs in under a poisoned Host header. This issue has been fixed in version 2.6.0.",
    "evidence": "osv:CVE-2026-39963",
    "products": [],
    "severity": "medium",
    "structured": {
      "id": "CVE-2026-39963",
      "aliases": [
        "CVE-2026-39963",
        "GHSA-4m6c-649p-f6gf"
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "type": "CVSS_V3",
          "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N"
        }
      ],
      "affected": [
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "repo": "https://github.com/s9y/serendipity",
              "type": "GIT",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "0"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "87696c92730d75785d17b515125be3862cdfb49e"
                }
              ],
              "database_specific": {
                "extracted_events": [
                  {
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "0"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "2.6.0"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "AFFECTED_FIELD",
                    "strategy": "StringRangeExpression"
                  },
                  {
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "fixed": "87696c92730d75785d17b515125be3862cdfb49e"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "REFERENCES_TAG",
                    "original_tag": "2.6.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:s9y:serendipity:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "0"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "2.6.0"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "CPE_RANGE"
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          ],
          "versions": [
            "2.6-beta1",
            "2.5.0",
            "2.5-beta1",
            "2.4.0",
            "2.4-beta1",
            "2.3.0",
            "2.3-rc1",
            "2.3-beta1",
            "2.2.1-alpha1",
            "2.1.1",
            "2.1.0",
            "2.1-rc1",
            "2.1-beta3",
            "2.1-beta2",
            "2.1-beta1"
          ],
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2026-39963.json"
          }
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-28T02:30:26.284446799Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "references": [
        "https://github.com/s9y/Serendipity/releases/tag/2.6.0",
        "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/39xxx/CVE-2026-39963.json",
        "https://github.com/s9y/Serendipity/security/advisories/GHSA-4m6c-649p-f6gf",
        "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-39963"
      ],
      "provider_metadata": {
        "cwe_ids": [
          "CWE-565"
        ],
        "cna_assigner": "GitHub_M",
        "osv_generated_from": "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/39xxx/CVE-2026-39963.json"
      }
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2026-39963",
        "evidence": "/id"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 492923,
  "published_at": "2026-04-14T23:31:13.843+00:00"
}