The related intercourse toy platform Lovense is susceptible to a zero-day flaw that permits an attacker to get entry to a member’s electronic mail tackle just by understanding their username, placing them vulnerable to doxxing and harassment.
Lovense is an interactive intercourse toy producer, finest identified for producing app-controlled intercourse toys with names just like the Lush, the Gush, and, maybe most boldly, the Kraken. The corporate claims to have 20 million prospects worldwide.
Whereas Lovense toys are generally used for each native and long-distance leisure, they’re additionally widespread amongst cam fashions who permit viewers to tip or subscribe for distant management of their toys.
Nonetheless, the related expertise may expose their Lovense username, and because of this flaw, probably reveal their non-public electronic mail tackle.
Lovense usernames are sometimes publicly shared on boards and social media, making them simple targets for attackers.
The flaw was found by safety researcher BobDaHacker, who collaborated with researchers Eva and Rebane to reverse engineer the app and automate the assault.
The researchers disclosed two flaws over 4 months in the past, on March 26, 2025. Nonetheless, solely one of many flaws, a crucial account hijacking flaw, was subsequently mounted.
The Lovense flaws
The vulnerability stems from the interplay between Lovense’s XMPP chat system, used for communication between customers, and the platform’s backend.
“So it began after I was utilizing the Lovense app and muted somebody. That is it. Simply muted them,” explains BobDaHacker’s report.
“However then I noticed the API response and was like… wait, is that an electronic mail tackle? Why is that there? After digging deeper, I found out easy methods to flip any username into their electronic mail tackle.”
To take advantage of the flaw, an attacker makes a POST request to the /api/put on/genGtoken API endpoint with their credentials, which returns a gtoken (authentication token) and AES-CBC encryption keys.
The attacker then takes any publicly identified Lovense username and encrypts it utilizing the retrieved encryption keys. This encrypted payload is distributed to the /app/ajaxCheckEmailOrUserIdRegisted?electronic mail={encrypted_username} API endpoint.
The server responds with information containing a pretend electronic mail tackle, which the researcher transformed right into a pretend Jabber ID (JID) utilized by Lovense’s XMPP server.
By including this pretend JID to their XMPP contact checklist and sending a presence subscription over XMPP (much like a good friend request), the attacker can refresh the roster (contact checklist), which now consists of each the pretend JID and the actual one related to the goal’s account.
Nonetheless, the issue is that the actual JID is constructed utilizing the person’s precise electronic mail, within the format username!!!area.com_w@im.lovense.com, permitting attackers to extract the sufferer’s electronic mail tackle.
For instance, if it returned bleeping!!!instance.com_w@im.lovense.com, the ensuing precise electronic mail of the Lovense account is bleeping@instance.com.
The researchers confirmed that all the course of may be accomplished in lower than one second per person with a script. BleepingComputer created a pretend account at the moment and shared our username with BobDaHacker, permitting them to easily join as a good friend and return the e-mail we registered with.
The researcher additionally said that it isn’t vital to simply accept a good friend request to use the flaw.
BleepingComputer additionally confirmed that it’s comparatively simple to search out legit usernames on boards and Lovense-related websites, like lovenselife.com.
The researcher additionally claims that the FanBerry extension, created by Lovense, can be utilized to reap usernames as lots of the cam fashions use the identical username, making wide-scale electronic mail harvesting potential.
The researchers additionally found a crucial vulnerability that allow them fully hijack an account.
Utilizing solely an electronic mail tackle, an attacker might generate authentication tokens with no need a password. Utilizing these tokens, an attacker might impersonate a person on Lovense platforms, together with Lovense Join, StreamMaster, and Cam101.
These tokens reportedly labored on admin accounts as properly.
Whereas Lovense has mitigated this flaw by rejecting the tokens on its APIs, the researchers famous that gtokens can nonetheless be generated and not using a password.
Each points have been reported to Lovense on March 26, 2025. In April, after additionally submitting the bugs on HackerOne, Lovense knowledgeable the researchers that the e-mail subject was already identified and stuck in an upcoming model.
The corporate initially downplayed the account hijacking flaw, however after being informed it might permit full admin account entry, Lovense reclassified it as crucial.
In complete, the researchers obtained $3,000 for the disclosure of the issues.
On June 4, the corporate claimed the issues have been mounted, however the researchers confirmed this was not the case. Lovense finally mounted the account hijack flaw in July however said that it might take roughly 14 months to resolve the e-mail flaw, as it might break compatibility with older variations of their app.
“We have launched a long-term remediation plan that may take roughly ten months, with at the very least 4 extra months required to completely implement an entire answer,” Lovense informed the researcher.
“We additionally evaluated a sooner, one-month repair. Nonetheless, it might require forcing all customers to improve instantly, which might disrupt assist for legacy variations. We have determined in opposition to this method in favor of a extra steady and user-friendly answer.”
The researchers criticized this response, stating the corporate repeatedly claimed the problems have been mounted once they weren’t.
“Your customers deserve higher. Cease placing outdated app assist over safety. Truly make things better. And take a look at your fixes earlier than saying they work,” BobDaHacker wrote within the report.
Finally, Lovense says they deployed a proxy function on July third that was recommended by the researchers to mitigate the assault. Nonetheless, even after doing a power replace of the app, the flaw was not mounted, so its unclear what was modified.
In 2016, a number of Lovense flaws uncovered electronic mail addresses or allowed attackers to find out if an electronic mail tackle had an accoune at Lovense.
BleepingComputer reached out to Lovense for remark however didn’t obtain a response.
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