CVE-2025-53544 Trilium Notes is Vulnerable to Brute-force Protection Bypass via Initial Sync Seed Retrieval

High 7.5 Published Updated

Unauthenticated attackers can bypass brute-force protection to guess login passwords in Trilium Notes, potentially leading to account takeover.

Exploited in the wild
Not known
Login needed
Not needed
Attackable
Over the internet
Victim action needed
Not needed
Fix
None listed

What is CVE-2025-53544?

CVE-2025-53544 is a high-severity vulnerability in TriliumNext Trilium, published on 5 Aug 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Trilium Notes is an open-source, cross-platform hierarchical note taking application with focus on building large personal knowledge bases. In versions below 0.97.0, a brute-force protection bypass in the initial sync seed retrieval endpoint allows unauthenticated attackers to guess the login password without triggering rate limiting. Trilium is a single-user app without a username requirement, and brute-force protection bypass makes exploitation much more feasible. Multiple features provided by Trilium (e.g. MFA, share notes, custom request handler) indicate that Trilium can be exposed to the internet. This is fixed in version 0.97.0.

Weakness: CWE-307

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-53544?

How do I fix CVE-2025-53544?

No fix has been published for CVE-2025-53544 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

Is CVE-2025-53544 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2025-53544 exists.

Sources

Also known as GHSA-hw5p-ff75-327r.

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