CVE-2020-4071CWE-208

Timing attack on django-basic-auth-ip-whitelist

Low · published June 24, 2020

CVSS v3.1
2.2
EPSS
0%
Percentile
28.4
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

In django-basic-auth-ip-whitelist before 0.3.4, a potential timing attack exists on websites where the basic authentication is used or configured, i.e. BASIC_AUTH_LOGIN and BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD is set. Currently the string comparison between configured credentials and the ones provided by users is performed through a character-by-character string comparison. This enables a possibility that attacker may time the time it takes the server to validate different usernames and password, and use this knowledge to work out the valid credentials. This attack is understood not to be realistic over the Internet. However, it may be achieved from within local networks where the website is hosted, e.g. from inside a data centre where a website's server is located. Sites protected by IP address whitelisting only are unaffected by this vulnerability. This vulnerability has been fixed on version 0.3.4 of django-basic-auth-ip-whitelist. Update to version 0.3.4 as soon as possible and change basic authentication username and password configured on a Django project using this package. A workaround without upgrading to version 0.3.4 is to stop using basic authentication and use the IP whitelisting component only. It can be achieved by not setting BASIC_AUTH_LOGIN and BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD in Django project settings.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
2.2 · LOW
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00358 · 28.4th percentile
Weakness
CWE-208 · Observable Timing Discrepancy
Published
2020-06-24T12:15Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 24 JUN 12:15Z
    Timing attack on django-basic-auth-ip-whitelist
    cvelistv5