CVE Feed

The Appointment Booking Calendar Plugin and Scheduling Plugin WordPress plugin before 1.6.3 does not verify the amount actually paid against the server-side price staged for a booking when confirming an online payment, allowing unauthenticated users to have a paid appointment approved for a fraction of its price.

The User Profile Builder WordPress plugin before 4.0.1 does not properly restrict its front-end file upload feature, granting unauthenticated visitors capabilities reserved to privileged roles. This allows them to list the site's media library and to modify unpublished posts, pages and media items belonging to other users.

The User Profile Builder WordPress plugin before 4.0.1 does not validate the type of data being deserialized when importing a configuration file, allowing high privilege users such as administrators to conduct PHP Object Injection. The affected feature is a free add-on which is disabled by default, and no POP chain is present in the User Profile Builder WordPress plugin before 4.0.1 itself, so further impact requires a suitable gadget from another installed User Profile Builder WordPress plugin before 4.0.1 or .

The User Profile Builder WordPress plugin before 4.0.1 does not escape the output of one of its optional shortcodes, allowing users with a role as low as contributor to perform Stored Cross-Site Scripting attacks against any user viewing the affected content, including administrators. The shortcode is not enabled by default.

The Catfolders Document Gallery Pro WordPress plugin before 2.0.7 does not authorise some of its REST API routes, and the token identifying the requested content is forgeable client side, allowing unauthenticated users to list and download the contents of folders that were never published on the site.

The MStore API WordPress plugin before 4.21.1 does not verify that the order targeted by its wallet payment handling belongs to the requester, and does not deduct the wallet balance for most payment methods, allowing any authenticated user, including Subscribers, to mark arbitrary orders as paid without any payment being taken.

The MStore API WordPress plugin before 4.21.1 does not verify that the order targeted by one of its delivery endpoints belongs to the requester, allowing any authenticated user, including Subscribers, to mark arbitrary orders as completed and paid without any payment being made.

The Newsletters WordPress plugin before 4.17 does not perform any nonce or capability check when saving one of its settings screens, and writes every submitted parameter into its own options, allowing attackers to make a logged in administrator overwrite arbitrary Newsletters WordPress plugin before 4.17 settings, including the credential protecting its API, via a Cross-Site Request Forgery attack.

The Newsletters WordPress plugin before 4.17 does not generate its API key using a sufficiently random source, deriving it from a publicly known value, allowing unauthenticated attackers to compute the key and perform privileged actions such as adding and deleting subscribers and sending emails, when the optional API has been enabled.

The Total processing card payments for WooCommerce WordPress plugin through 7.3 does not validate a user-supplied path before using it to build a server-side verification request, and does not verify the authenticity of the response, allowing unauthenticated attackers to redirect that request to an arbitrary host (disclosing the merchant's payment-gateway credentials) and to forge a success response that marks arbitrary WooCommerce orders as paid.

The SmartAIPress WordPress plugin through 1.2.0 does not perform a capability check on one of its AJAX actions and does not validate a user-supplied URL before fetching it server-side, allowing users with subscriber-level access and above to make the site retrieve arbitrary internal or external URLs and read the response, resulting in a full-read Server-Side Request Forgery.

The Uix UserCenter WordPress plugin through 1.0.3 does not verify that the account being modified through an unauthenticated profile-update action belongs to the requester, and it authenticates that action with a token whose signing key is hardcoded and identical across every install, allowing unauthenticated attackers to forge a token for any user, overwrite an administrator's email and password, and take over the account.

The Rest Routes WordPress plugin through 5.5.5 does not sanitize and validate a value taken from the URL of one of its public REST routes before using it in a SQL query, allowing unauthenticated attackers to perform SQL injection attacks.

The MemberHero WordPress plugin through 6.9 does not restrict which account fields can be supplied during its frontend registration process, allowing unauthenticated attackers to register a new user with an arbitrary role, including Administrator, leading to a full site takeover. Version 6.9 is advertised as resolving this issue, but the fix is incomplete and the current version remains exploitable by unauthenticated attackers to obtain administrator access and to take over existing accounts. No version that fully addresses the issue is available at the time of this advisory. Mitigation: deactivate and remove the MemberHero WordPress plugin through 6.9 until a version that fully resolves this issue is released. If the MemberHero WordPress plugin through 6.9 must stay active, disable public registration, restrict access to the registration functionality, and monitor the site for unexpected administrator accounts.

Traffic interception vulnerability in BOSH Director vCenter CPI allows attackers positioned between BOSH Director and vCenter to impersonate vCenter REST API and capture administrator credentials via HTTP Basic auth, leading to complete virtualization infrastructure takeover. An attacker who can intercept traffic between the BOSH Director and vCenter can establish a malicious server impersonating the vCenter REST API. When the BOSH Director makes CPI calls to perform routine cloud infrastructure operations, the attacker captures the vCenter administrator username and password transmitted via HTTP Basic authentication. The vulnerability stems from insufficient authentication security in the communication protocol between BOSH Director and vCenter. While HTTPS may be used, the lack of proper certificate validation and pinning allows attackers to successfully impersonate vCenter endpoints. Because vCenter credentials typically grant full administrative control over the entire virtualization estate, successful credential capture yields complete takeover of every VM, datastore, and network the CPI manages. This exposure exists on every CPI call (including routine deployment operations, not just when tags are configured) and cannot be mitigated by supplying a CA certificate alone. The attack impacts all infrastructure managed by the compromised vCenter instance, potentially affecting hundreds or thousands of VMs across multiple deployments and environments.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: gro: properly validate BIG TCP aggregation criteria When GRO attempts to aggregate packets beyond GRO_LEGACY_MAX_SIZE (64KB), BIG TCP should only be permitted for plain IPv4 TCP and plain IPv6 TCP (with sufficient MAC header room to insert the temporary HBH jumbo header). However, commit b1a78b9b9886 ("net: add support for ipv4 big tcp") loosened the check in skb_gro_receive(), leading to several issues: 1. skb_gro_receive() checked skb_headroom(p) instead of the actual space before the MAC header (p->mac_header). Because skb_headroom(p) includes mac_len, crafted frames (e.g. injected via AF_PACKET) can pass the check with p->mac_header < 8 bytes. When ipv6_gro_complete() inserts the temporary HBH jumbo header, the memmove() starts before skb->head, causing an out-of-bounds write and wrapping skb->mac_header. 2. It allowed non-IP protocols such as software VLAN (ETH_P_8021Q / ETH_P_8021AD) to aggregate beyond 64KB because p->protocol != ETH_P_IPV6 was true. 3. It checked p->encapsulation instead of NAPI_GRO_CB(skb)->encap_mark, allowing encapsulated flows (e.g. SIT / IPv6-in-IPv4) to aggregate beyond 64KB. Fix skb_gro_receive() to strictly enforce: - NAPI_GRO_CB(skb)->proto == IPPROTO_TCP - Not encapsulated (!NAPI_GRO_CB(skb)->encap_mark && !p->encapsulation) - Protocol must be either ETH_P_IP or ETH_P_IPV6 - If ETH_P_IPV6, p->mac_header must be at least sizeof(struct hop_jumbo_hdr) Returning -E2BIG from skb_gro_receive() ensures that packets which cannot become BIG TCP are cleanly flushed at <= 64KB and delivered intact without dropping. This issue does not exist in mainline (7.0+) because the subsystem was rewritten in commit 81be30c1f5f2 ("net/ipv6: Drop HBH for BIG TCP on RX side"), making this fix relevant only for older stable branches like 6.18.y.

MariaDB Connector/R2DBC is a non-blocking MariaDB and MySQL client implemented in Java. Prior to 1.4.1, org.mariadb:r2dbc-mariadb does not gate clear-text password authentication plugins on transport encryption because the AuthenticationPlugin interface has no capability for a plugin to require a secure connection. A hostile or man-in-the-middle MariaDB server can send an AuthSwitchRequest naming mysql_clear_password or dialog (PAM) over a plain-TCP unencrypted connection, and AuthenticationFlow permits ClearPasswordPluginFlow or PamPluginFlow to return the user's password as cleartext bytes on the wire. The disclosed credentials can subsequently be used to authenticate directly to the database server. This issue is fixed in version 1.4.1.

MariaDB Connector/R2DBC is a non-blocking MariaDB and MySQL client implemented in Java. Prior to 1.4.1, org.mariadb:r2dbc-mariadb encodes and decodes all character data under the assumption that the connection character set is UTF-8. A server can announce a mid-session change to character_set_client through the OK-packet session-state-tracking mechanism, including through SET NAMES executed by a stored routine or trigger, server configuration, or a hostile or man-in-the-middle server. If the new character set is not UTF-8, the driver continues to exchange UTF-8 while the server interprets the same bytes under a different encoding, causing silent data corruption and a client/server charset-confusion mismatch that can defeat byte-wise quoting or escaping. The fix accepts only utf8, utf8mb3, or utf8mb4 after initialization; any other value raises R2dbcNonTransientResourceException with SQLState 08000 and closes the connection. This issue is fixed in version 1.4.1.

MariaDB Connector/J is used to connect applications developed in Java to MariaDB and MySQL databases. Prior to 2.7.14, 3.3.5, 3.4.3, and 3.5.9, the connector encodes and decodes protocol text and performs client-side escaping under the assumption that the connection character set is UTF-8. The server can report a mid-session change to character_set_client through OK-packet session-state tracking, including a change caused by SET NAMES, a stored routine or trigger, server configuration, or a hostile server. If character_set_client changes to a non-UTF-8 value, the driver continues to read and write UTF-8 while the server interprets the same bytes under another encoding, causing silent data corruption and a client/server charset-confusion mismatch that can defeat byte-wise quoting or escaping. The fix accepts only utf8, utf8mb3, or utf8mb4 after initialization; any other value causes SQLException with SQLState 08000 and closes the connection. This issue is fixed in versions 2.7.14, 3.3.5, 3.4.3, and 3.5.9.

MariaDB Connector/J is used to connect applications developed in Java to MariaDB and MySQL databases. Prior to 2.7.14, 3.3.5, 3.4.3, and 3.5.9, PAM dialog authentication can be coerced into transmitting the account password over an insecure connection. The mysql_clear_password plugin is gated behind a secure transport, but the sibling PAM handler SendPamAuthPacketFactory, named dialog by the server, does not declare that requirement and inherits the default secure-required value false; older branches implement the same affected behavior in SendPamAuthPacket. A hostile or man-in-the-middle server can send an Authentication Switch Request for dialog over plain TCP, causing the driver to return the user's password in cleartext when sslMode=DISABLE and restrictedAuth=null, which is the default configuration. Properly verified TLS and local Unix sockets are not exposed to this transport vector. This issue is fixed in versions 2.7.14, 3.3.5, 3.4.3, and 3.5.9.

MariaDB Connector/J is used to connect applications developed in Java to MariaDB and MySQL databases. Prior to 2.7.14, 3.3.5, 3.4.3, and 3.5.9, when a Java application connects with sslMode=verify-full or sslMode=verify-ca, supplies a password, and does not configure serverSslCert or trustStore, Connector/J can accept an untrusted self-signed certificate through the fallbackToSystemTrustStore=true ephemeral trust manager and record its certFingerprint for later identity binding. The OK-packet and authentication-switch paths enforce the certificate fingerprint, but the initial-handshake path does not. HandshakeResponse.encode() can therefore build and send a mysql_clear_password response before checking certFingerprint != null && !isMitMProof(), sslMode, or whether the authentication plugin is resistant to a man-in-the-middle, and the initial path also bypasses restrictedAuth. An active man-in-the-middle or hostile server can present a self-signed certificate, claim to be MariaDB, select mysql_clear_password as the initial authentication plugin, and receive the full database password before the connection is rejected. This issue is fixed in versions 2.7.14, 3.3.5, 3.4.3, and 3.5.9.

mapfish-print is a component of MapFish for printing templated cartographic maps. Prior to 3.28.30, 3.30.32, 3.31.24, 3.33.16, and 4.0.5, MapFish Print accepts an attacker-controlled GML layer url in requests to the /api/print3/print endpoint and fetches XML parsed by core/src/main/java/org/mapfish/print/map/geotools/GmlLayer.java without disabling external entities and external DTDs. A remote XML document and DTD can expand a local file entity, and the resulting content can be exposed through the GML parsing and error path. This allows unauthenticated attackers to read files such as operating-system account data, Kubernetes service-account tokens, and certificates. Replacing the file entity target with an internal HTTP endpoint also permits server-side request forgery. This issue is fixed in versions 3.28.30, 3.30.32, 3.31.24, 3.33.16, and 4.0.5.

free5GC is an open-source implementation of the 5G core network. Prior to 1.4.5, the AUSF component performs cryptographic authentication comparisons in internal/sbi/processor/ue_authentication.go with ordinary equality helpers. Auth5gAkaComfirmRequestProcedure compares RES* and XRES* with strings.EqualFold and logs the expected XRES* value at INFO level before comparison. EapAuthComfirmRequestProcedure compares AT_MAC and XMAC with bytes.Equal and evaluates XRES == RES with ordinary string equality. These comparisons can return at mismatch-dependent times, although testing did not demonstrate a practical remote timing oracle because of HTTP/SBI timing noise. The INFO log exposes authentication material to operators, log collectors, sidecars, or processes able to read AUSF logs. This issue is fixed in version 1.4.5.

free5GC is an open-source implementation of the 5G core network. In version 1.4.4 and earlier, the AUSF component stores per-subscriber authentication state in a global sync.Map named AUSFContext.UePool in internal/context/context.go, keyed only by SUPI. Every request handled by internal/sbi/processor/ue_authentication.go creates an AusfUeContext, and AddAusfUeContextToPool executes ausfContext.UePool.Store(ausfUeContext.Supi, ausfUeContext), unconditionally replacing the active context for that SUPI. An attacker with access to the AUSF SBI/N12 interface can send concurrent POST /nausf-auth/v1/ue-authentications requests for the same target SUPI, causing all attempts to share one logical authentication context URL while K_aut, XRES, and EapID are repeatedly overwritten. A valid EAP-AKA' response for an earlier challenge is then checked against the latest context, causing AT_MAC verification to fail and denying authentication to the selected subscriber while the request flood continues. No fixed version is available as of this review.

Silverstripe Versioned provides versioning for Silverstripe models. Prior to 3.2.1, RestoreAction::getRestoreMessage() in src/RestoreAction.php builds ArchiveAdmin restore notifications rendered as CAST_HTML and inserts $restoredItem->Title, $restoredItem->URLSegment, $restoredItem->CMSEditLink(), and $changedProperty['value'] without applying Convert::raw2xml(). When an administrator restores an archived page containing a crafted title or URL segment, the generated restoration message can execute stored JavaScript in the administrator's browser, compromising the confidentiality and integrity of the CMS session. This issue is fixed in version 3.2.1.

Graylog is a free and open log management platform. From 6.2.0 until 6.3.12, 7.0.7, and 7.1.2, the DELETE /users/{userId}/tokens/{idOrToken} endpoint implemented by UsersResource.revokeToken() in graylog2-server/src/main/java/org/graylog2/rest/resources/users/UsersResource.java checks USERS_TOKENREMOVE permission against the attacker-controlled userId path parameter before resolving the token selected by idOrToken. An authenticated user can provide an authorized userId while accessTokenService.loadById() or accessTokenService.load() resolves a token belonging to another user, including a service account or administrator, after which accessTokenService.destroy() deletes that token without checking AccessToken.getUserName(). The issue does not expose token contents, but unauthorized deletion causes integrity impact and can disrupt access-token-based integrations. This issue is fixed in versions 6.3.12, 7.0.7, and 7.1.2.

Graylog is a free and open log management platform. Prior to Graylog Server versions 6.3.12, 7.0.7, and 7.1.2 and Graylog Forwarder version 7.3, the FortiGate key-value syslog parser in graylog2-server/src/main/java/org/graylog2/inputs/codecs/GLFortiGateSyslogEvent.java and graylog2-server/src/main/java/org/graylog2/inputs/codecs/SyslogCodec.java mishandles field-like text inside quoted values. GLFortiGateSyslogEvent.getFields() uses KV_PATTERN and QUOTED_KV_PATTERN, while SyslogCodec.parse() invokes the FortiGateSyslogEvent parser; crafted values containing = or backslash-escaped quotes can cause embedded keys such as srcip, dstip, date, time, and tz to remove or overwrite original top-level fields or produce an invalid message that Graylog discards. An unauthenticated network sender who can submit syslog messages can therefore manipulate security-log fields or evade logging to obscure malicious activity. This issue is fixed in Graylog Server versions 6.3.12, 7.0.7, and 7.1.2 and Graylog Forwarder version 7.3.

Klever-Go is the Go implementation of the Klever blockchain protocol. Prior to 1.7.19, Klever-Go allows a mint-role holder to bypass a finite per-nonce MaxSupply on the semi-fungible token add-quantity path. In core/kapp/systemAccount/systemAcount.go, SFTAddCirculation performed meta.Circulation += amount before evaluating whether Circulation exceeded MaxSupply, without checking for signed int64 overflow. A large positive raw Amount supplied through processSemiFungibleAddQuantity in core/kapp/kda/mint.go can wrap Circulation negative, causing the signed maximum-supply comparison to pass and crediting approximately MaxInt64 units while corrupting the on-chain counter. The fungible path is not affected because its MintedValue <= 0 guard detects the overflow. The correction uses the consensus activation flag FixMarketBuyOverflow. This issue is fixed in version 1.7.19.

MariaDB Connector/Node.js is used to connect applications developed on Node.js to MariaDB and MySQL databases. Prior to 3.2.4, 3.3.3, 3.4.6, and 3.5.3, MariaDB Connector/Node.js permits SQL injection when attacker-controlled Buffer parameters are escaped client-side under the big5, gbk, sjis, cp932, or gb18030 client character sets. PacketOutputStream.writeBufferEscape in lib/io/packet-output-stream.js escaped bytes without the charset-aware getMbRecognizer logic in lib/misc/charset-mb.js. The server SQL lexer runs my_ismbchar before escape processing, so an attacker-controlled lead byte can consume the inserted 0x5C backslash as a multibyte trail byte and leave the following 0x27 quote unescaped, terminating the string literal and allowing arbitrary SQL. The default utf8mb4 character set and parameters sent through the execute binary prepared-statement path are not affected. Successful exploitation can expose or modify data available to the database account. This issue is fixed in versions 3.2.4, 3.3.3, 3.4.6, and 3.5.3.

MariaDB Connector/Node.js is used to connect applications developed on Node.js to MariaDB and MySQL databases. Prior to 3.2.4, 3.3.3, 3.4.6, and 3.5.3, MariaDB Connector/Node.js can disclose an account password when PAM dialog authentication is negotiated over an insecure transport. In lib/cmd/handshake/auth/pam-password-auth.js and lib/cmd/handshake/authentication.js, the SendPamAuthPacketFactory behavior for the server-side plugin dialog lacked the secure-transport gate applied to mysql_clear_password. With the default sslMode=DISABLE and restrictedAuth=null settings, a hostile or on-path server can send an Authentication Switch Request for dialog over plain TCP, causing the connector to return the account password in cleartext. Properly verified TLS and a local Unix socket prevent this path, while fingerprint-only server identity validation is not sufficient. This issue is fixed in versions 3.2.4, 3.3.3, 3.4.6, and 3.5.3.

StorageGRID (formerly StorageGRID Webscale) versions 11.5 and higher in a non-standard configuration and scenario are susceptible to a Denial of Service vulnerability. Successful exploit could allow an attacker with some control over the environment to cause a partial Denial of Service.

IGEL OS 12 before 12.9.0, 12.8.3 LTS and IGEL OS 11 before 11.11.150 contain a secure boot bypass vulnerability in the GRUB boot stage that allows physically present attackers to gain unauthorized root access by placing an unsigned empty file named igel.conf on a partition. Attackers can exploit GRUB's fail-open signature verification behavior to drop into an interactive GRUB prompt, then boot the device's own kernel with additional command-line arguments to obtain a root shell with the disk unlocked while leaving TPM PCR values unaltered.

IGEL OS 12 before 12.7.6 and IGEL OS 11 before 11.11.150 contain a boot registry parameter injection vulnerability that allows attackers with physical access to execute arbitrary Linux loader parameters by writing to an unencrypted and unsigned configuration area read by the signed bootloader. Attackers can inject malicious kernel command line parameters that execute with boot environment privileges without triggering TPM PCR measurement failures, as the attack does not modify the measured boot code.

IBM Cloud Pak for Data System 11.3.0.2 through Interim Fix 001 is vulnerable to a denial of service due to improper limitation of resources.

IBM Concert 1.0.0 through 2.3.1 is vulnerable to SQL injection. A remote attacker could send specially crafted SQL statements, which could allow the attacker to view, add, modify, or delete information in the back-end database.

IBM Langflow OSS 1.0.0 through 1.11.1 allows an authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary operating system commands in the server process by saving a flow with a crafted type field value and triggering a build of a wrapper flow that references it. This allowed privilege escalation from "authenticated flow user" to arbitrary OS-level command execution under the server process identity, bypassing the LANGFLOW_ALLOW_CUSTOM_COMPONENTS=false policy control.

IBM Langflow OSS 1.0.0 through 1.11.1 could allow a remote authenticated attacker to execute and read any user's private flow due to improper authorization.

IBM Langflow OSS 1.0.0 through 1.11.1 could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code due to improper enforcement of security restrictions on the A2A public endpoint.

IBM Langflow OSS 1.0.0 through 1.11.1 could allow a remote attacker to obtain sensitive information and inject unauthorized messages due to a namespace collision between user identifiers.

IBM Langflow OSS 1.0.0 through 1.11.1 could allow a remote attacker to read arbitrary files due to path traversal.

IBM Langflow OSS 1.0.0 through 1.11.1 could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary flows and access sensitive information due to improper authentication.

IBM Langflow OSS 1.0.0 through 1.11.1 could allow a remote authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code due to improper control of generation of code.

IBM Langflow OSS 1.0.0 through 1.11.1 is vulnerable to server-side request forgery (SSRF). This may allow an authenticated attacker to send unauthorized requests from the system, potentially leading to network enumeration or facilitating other attacks.

IBM Administration Runtime Expert for i 1R1M0 IBM Application Runtime Expert (ARE) for i could allow a remote attacker to gain elevated privileges, caused by ARE GUI component processing. An unauthenticated attacker can exploit this vulnerability to execute actions under another user's authenticated profile gaining elevated privileges on the IBM i system.

IBM Administration Runtime Expert for i 1R1M0 could allow a remote authenticated attacker to obtain sensitive information due to improper authentication enforcement.

IBM AIX 7.2, and 7.3 and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1 could allow a local attacker to gain elevated privileges due to a format string vulnerability.

IBM Concert 1.0.0 through 2.3.1 could allow a remote attacker to perform unauthorized actions using man in the middle techniques due to improper certificate validation.

IBM Integrated Analytics System 1.0.0.0 through 1.0.31.0 does not validate or improperly validates TLS certificate validation, which could allow an attacker to obtain sensitive information using man in the middle techniques.

IBM Integrated Analytics System 1.0.0.0 through 1.0.31.0 uses weaker than expected cryptographic algorithms that could allow an attacker to decrypt highly sensitive information.

Zephyr's WireGuard implementation in subsys/net/lib/wireguard/wg_crypto.c mishandled keepalive packets. In wg_process_data_message(), any type-4 transport-data message whose payload was exactly 16 bytes (an empty plaintext plus a bare Poly1305 tag, i.e. a keepalive) was accepted and returned immediately, before wg_decrypt_packet() was ever called. The Poly1305 authentication tag was therefore never verified; the only preceding gates were a cleartext receiver-index lookup (get_peer_keypair_for_index() on the attacker-supplied data_hdr->receiver) and a non-cryptographic keypair validity/expiry check. The path is reachable entirely from the network: inbound UDP on the WireGuard port is dispatched by wg_input() to handle_transport_data() and then wg_process_data_message(). The 32-bit receiver index is transmitted in cleartext in WireGuard handshake and data messages, so an on-path observer learns it directly and an off-path attacker can brute-force it against the UDP port. Given an active receiving-valid session for that index, an attacker could send a 16-byte garbage payload and have it accepted without possessing the session key. On acceptance the unauthenticated message caused the management layer to observe a spoofed NET_EVENT_VPN_CONNECTED signal (setting peer->first_valid and notifying any net_mgmt listener) and incremented the keepalive-RX statistic. The impact is limited to integrity of this status signal: no plaintext is decrypted or injected, no key is disclosed, and the early-return path did not update the peer endpoint or liveness timers, so there is no traffic-injection, session-takeover, or availability consequence. The fix removes the pre-decrypt early return so a 16-byte payload flows through wg_decrypt_packet(), which verifies the Poly1305 tag over the empty plaintext, followed by the existing anti-replay check; only an authenticated, non-replayed message is then recognised as a keepalive. Forged keepalives now fail the tag check and are counted as decrypt failures.