{"id":86717,"date":"2026-03-18T12:28:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T12:28:18","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T06:00:00","slug":"cve-2025-53544-brute-force-protection-bypass-vulnerability-in-trilium-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-53544-brute-force-protection-bypass-vulnerability-in-trilium-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>CVE-2025-53544: Brute-Force Protection Bypass Vulnerability in Trilium Notes<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This report discusses a critical vulnerability, CVE-2025-53544, found in Trilium Notes, an open-source, cross-platform note taking application. This vulnerability allows unauthenticated attackers to bypass the brute-force protection in the initial sync seed retrieval endpoint, potentially leading to system compromise or data leakage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE ID: CVE-2025-53544<br \/>\nSeverity: High (CVSS Score: 7.5)<br \/>\nAttack Vector: Network<br \/>\nPrivileges Required: None<br \/>\nUser Interaction: None<br \/>\nImpact: Potential system compromise or data leakage<\/p>\n<p><strong>Affected Products<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-557567213\" class=\"ameeb-content-2 ameeb-entity-placement\"><div style=\"border-left: 4px solid #555; padding-left: 20px; margin: 48px 0; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.6; max-width: 700px;\">\r\n  <h2 style=\"margin-top: 0; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 600; display: flex; align-items: center;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"display: inline-flex; align-items: center; margin-right: 8px;\">\r\n      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Best-App-icon-Ameeba.png\" alt=\"Ameeba Chat Icon\" style=\"width: 40px; height: 40px;\" \/>\r\n    <\/a>\r\n    A new way to communicate\r\n  <\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 12px;\">\r\n    Ameeba Chat is built on encrypted identity, not personal profiles.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 16px;\">\r\n    Message, call, share files, and coordinate with identities kept separate.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <ul style=\"list-style: none; padding-left: 0; margin-bottom: 20px;\">\r\n    <li>\u2022 Encrypted identity<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Ameeba Chat authenticates access<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Aliases and categories<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 End-to-end encrypted chat, calls, and files<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Secure notes for sensitive information<\/li>\r\n  <\/ul>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 24px;\">\r\n    Private communication, rethought.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <div style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 12px;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\/download\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Download Ameeba Chat<\/a>\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ffffff; color: #ffffff; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Learn More<\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n<p>Product | Affected Versions<\/p>\n<p>Trilium Notes | Versions below 0.97.0<\/p>\n<p><strong>How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>An unauthenticated attacker can exploit this vulnerability by repeatedly guessing the login password for Trilium Notes. As the application does not require a username and has insufficient brute-force protection in place, this allows the attacker to avoid triggering rate limiting, thus making the brute force attack more feasible. Successful exploitation could result in unauthorized access, system compromise, or data leakage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-1521110386\" class=\"ameeb-content ameeb-entity-placement\"><div class=\"poptin-embedded\" data-id=\"f6b387694f681\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n<p>The conceptual example below demonstrates how an attacker might exploit this vulnerability:<\/p>\n<pre><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">POST \/sync-seed-retrieval HTTP\/1.1\nHost: target.example.com\nContent-Type: application\/json\n{ &quot;password_guess&quot;: &quot;...&quot; }<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>In this example, the attacker sends repeated HTTP POST requests to the &#8220;\/sync-seed-retrieval&#8221; endpoint, each time guessing a different password in the &#8220;password_guess&#8221; field. The lack of rate limiting means the attacker can make unlimited guesses without being blocked or slowed down.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Remediation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The vendor has fixed this issue in Trilium Notes version 0.97.0. Users of affected versions are advised to upgrade as soon as possible. Alternatively, users can apply a WAF\/IDS as a temporary mitigation measure until the patch can be applied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview This report discusses a critical vulnerability, CVE-2025-53544, found in Trilium Notes, an open-source, cross-platform note taking application. This vulnerability allows unauthenticated attackers to bypass the brute-force protection in the initial sync seed retrieval endpoint, potentially leading to system compromise or data leakage. Vulnerability Summary CVE ID: CVE-2025-53544 Severity: High (CVSS Score: 7.5) Attack Vector: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"vendor":[],"product":[],"attack_vector":[],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-86717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86717"},{"taxonomy":"vendor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vendor?post=86717"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=86717"},{"taxonomy":"attack_vector","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/attack_vector?post=86717"},{"taxonomy":"asset_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/asset_type?post=86717"},{"taxonomy":"severity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/severity?post=86717"},{"taxonomy":"exploit_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exploit_status?post=86717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}