# CVE-2026-27981: HomeBox has an Auth Rate Limit Bypass via IP Spoofing

> Attackers can bypass authentication rate limits by spoofing IP headers, enabling brute-force attacks against HomeBox.

- **Severity:** High 7.4 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 3 Mar 2026
- **Updated:** 4 Mar 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-j86g-v96v-jpp3

## What is CVE-2026-27981?

CVE-2026-27981 is a high-severity vulnerability in sysadminsmedia homebox, published on 3 Mar 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

HomeBox is a home inventory and organization system. Prior to 0.24.0, the authentication rate limiter (authRateLimiter) tracks failed attempts per client IP. It determines the client IP by reading, 1. X-Real-IP header, 2. First entry of X-Forwarded-For header, and 3. r.RemoteAddr (TCP connection address). These headers were read unconditionally. An attacker connecting directly to Homebox could forge any value in X-Real-IP, effectively getting a fresh rate limit identity per request. There is a TrustProxy option in the configuration (Options.TrustProxy, default false), but this option was never read by any middleware or rate limiter code. Additionally, chi's middleware.RealIP was applied unconditionally in main.go, overwriting r.RemoteAddr with the forged header value before it reaches any handler. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.24.0.

Weakness: CWE-307 (Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-27981?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Sysadminsmedia Homebox.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-27981?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-27981 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-27981 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-27981 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in sysadminsmedia homebox

- [CVE-2026-40196](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-40196/): HomeBox has Unauthorized API Access via Retained defaultGroup ID After Group Access Revocation (high 8.1)
- [CVE-2026-27600](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-27600/): HomeBox affected by Blind SSRF (medium 5.0)
- [CVE-2026-26272](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-26272/): HomeBox affected by Stored XSS via HTML/SVG Attachment Upload (medium 4.6)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-27981 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-27981 is a high-severity vulnerability in sysadminsmedia homebox, published on 3 Mar 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-27981 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: sysadminsmedia homebox. 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-2026-27981/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-27981/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-27981
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-27981
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-27981

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-27981/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.