CVE-2025-57805: Scratch Channel Auth Bypass Vulnerability

CVE-2025-57805 Overview

CVE-2025-57805 is a broken access control vulnerability in The Scratch Channel, an open-source news website application. Versions 1 and 1.1 expose an article publishing endpoint that fails to validate the identity of the requesting user. An attacker can issue a crafted POST request to publish articles in any category with any date, regardless of authentication state. The maintainers patched the issue in version 1.2.

The flaw is tracked under [CWE-20] Improper Input Validation and stems from missing authorization checks on a content publishing endpoint.

Critical Impact

Unauthenticated attackers can publish arbitrary articles into any category with any date, enabling content spoofing, misinformation, and reputational damage to the platform.

Affected Products

• The Scratch Channel web client (tsc-web-client) version 1
• The Scratch Channel web client (tsc-web-client) version 1.1
• Fixed in The Scratch Channel web client version 1.2

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-08-25 - CVE-2025-57805 published to NVD
• 2026-04-15 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-57805

Vulnerability Analysis

The Scratch Channel exposes a POST endpoint used to publish articles to the site. The endpoint accepts user-controlled parameters including article category and publication date. The server-side handler does not verify that the requester is authenticated or authorized to publish content. As a result, any network-reachable client can submit a POST request and have the article accepted and published.

Because the date field is attacker-controlled, adversaries can backdate or post-date entries to impersonate historical reporting. Because the category field is attacker-controlled, content can be inserted into trusted sections of the site. The vulnerability requires no privileges, no user interaction, and is reachable over the network.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing authorization enforcement on a state-changing endpoint combined with improper input validation of identity-bound fields such as the author and date. The application trusts client-supplied values rather than deriving them from a verified session context.

Attack Vector

An attacker sends a single HTTP POST request to the article publication endpoint of a vulnerable Scratch Channel deployment. The request body includes the desired article content, category, and publication date. The server processes the request and persists the article without verifying the caller's identity. No credentials, tokens, or prior user interaction are required.

The vulnerability mechanism is described in the GitHub Security Advisory GHSA-h5rj-2466-qr23. No verified public proof-of-concept code is available at this time.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-57805

Indicators of Compromise

• Articles appearing in the database or on the published site without a corresponding authenticated session record in application logs.
• Articles with publication dates that do not align with their database insertion timestamps.
• POST requests to the article publishing endpoint originating from IP addresses with no prior authentication events.

Detection Strategies

• Audit application logs for POST requests to the article publishing endpoint and correlate each request with an active authenticated session.
• Compare the created_at database timestamp of each article with its declared publication date and flag significant divergences.
• Review article author fields against the set of legitimate editorial accounts and flag any unrecognized values.

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable verbose access logging on the web tier and forward logs to a centralized analytics platform for query and alerting.
• Establish a baseline publishing rate per category and alert on statistical anomalies that may indicate automated abuse.
• Monitor the GitHub repository for new security advisories and patch releases affecting tsc-web-client.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-57805

Immediate Actions Required

• Upgrade The Scratch Channel web client to version 1.2 or later, which contains the official fix.
• Audit the article database for entries created during the exposure window and remove or quarantine any unauthorized content.
• Rotate any API keys or service credentials that may have been logged alongside abusive requests.

Patch Information

The maintainers released version 1.2 of tsc-web-client containing the authorization fix for the publishing endpoint. Refer to the GitHub Security Advisory GHSA-h5rj-2466-qr23 for advisory details and release links.

Workarounds

• Place the publishing endpoint behind a reverse proxy or web application firewall rule that requires a valid session cookie before forwarding requests to the application.
• Restrict network access to the publishing endpoint to known editorial IP ranges until the upgrade to version 1.2 is complete.
• Disable the article publication feature entirely if the patch cannot be applied immediately.