# CVE-2024-51738: Sunshine improperly enforces pairing protocol request order

> An attacker can hijack pairing attempts to gain unauthorized access or crash the Sunshine game streaming server.

- **Severity:** High 7.7 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 20 Jan 2025
- **Updated:** 21 Jan 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-3hrw-xv8h-9499

## What is CVE-2024-51738?

CVE-2024-51738 is a high-severity vulnerability in LizardByte Sunshine, published on 20 Jan 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

Sunshine is a self-hosted game stream host for Moonlight. In 0.23.1 and earlier, Sunshine's pairing protocol implementation does not validate request order and is thereby vulnerable to a MITM attack, potentially allowing an unauthenticated attacker to pair a client by hijacking a legitimate pairing attempt. This bug may also be used by a remote attacker to crash Sunshine. This vulnerability is fixed in 2025.118.151840.

Weakness: CWE-841 (Improper Enforcement of Behavioral Workflow), CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference), CWE-305 (Authentication Bypass by Primary Weakness)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-51738?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Lizardbyte Sunshine.

## How do I fix CVE-2024-51738?

No fix has been published for CVE-2024-51738 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2024-51738 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-51738 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in LizardByte Sunshine

- [CVE-2026-32253](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-32253/): Sunshine: Authentication bypass via improper client certificate validation (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2025-53095](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-53095/): Sunshine application-wide CSRF in the UI leads to command injection as Administrator (critical 9.7)
- [CVE-2025-10198](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-10198/): LizardBytes Sunshine for Windows contains a DLL search-order hijacking vulnerability (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2025-10199](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-10199/): A local privilege escalation vulnerability exists in LizardBytes' Sunshine for Windows (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2024-31220](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-31220/): Sunshine vulnerable to remote unauthenticated arbitrary file read (high 7.3)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2024-51738 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2024-51738 is a high-severity vulnerability in LizardByte Sunshine, published on 20 Jan 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-51738 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: LizardByte Sunshine. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-51738/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-51738/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-51738
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-51738
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-51738

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-51738/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.