CVE-2026-78551
RansomLook Login Endpoint Allows Timing-Based Username Enumeration and Unthrottled Authentication Attempts
Description
RansomLook contains multiple weaknesses in its authentication endpoint that allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to enumerate valid usernames, perform unrestricted password-guessing attacks, and potentially exhaust application worker resources. For local authentication, the login implementation previously checked whether a submitted username existed before invoking the password hash verification function. Requests containing a nonexistent username therefore returned significantly faster than requests for valid accounts, for which the computationally expensive password verification routine was executed. A remote attacker could measure these response-time differences to determine which usernames correspond to valid RansomLook accounts. In addition, the /login endpoint did not restrict the number or frequency of failed authentication attempts. An attacker could consequently perform password brute-force, dictionary, password-spraying, or credential-stuffing attacks against known accounts without server-side throttling. For valid usernames, each authentication attempt also invokes the password key-derivation function, which consumes a significant amount of CPU time. A sufficiently high rate of login attempts could therefore occupy the application's synchronous Gunicorn workers and cause a denial of service affecting the entire application. The issue has been addressed by always performing password verification using a randomly generated dummy password hash when the supplied username does not exist, eliminating the username-dependent timing discrepancy. Failed authentication attempts are additionally rate-limited per client IP address using Valkey/Redis, with five failed attempts within five minutes resulting in a one-hour block. The reverse-proxy configuration was also updated so that the application derives the client address from a trusted X-Forwarded-For value that cannot be overridden by a client-supplied header.
INFO
Published Date :
Aug. 24, 2026, 8:17 p.m.
Last Modified :
Aug. 24, 2026, 8:17 p.m.
Remotely Exploit :
Yes !
Source :
5a6e4751-2f3f-4070-9419-94fb35b644e8
Affected Products
The following products are affected by CVE-2026-78551
vulnerability.
Even if cvefeed.io is aware of the exact versions of the
products
that
are
affected, the information is not represented in the table below.
No affected product recoded yet
CVSS Scores
| Score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability Score | Impact Score | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVSS | 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 | |||||
| CVSS 4.0 | HIGH | 5a6e4751-2f3f-4070-9419-94fb35b644e8 | ||||
| CVSS 4.0 | HIGH | 5a6e4751-2f3f-4070-9419-94fb35b644e8 |
Solution
- Validate usernames before password verification.
- Rate-limit failed login attempts.
- Configure reverse proxy to trust X-Forwarded-For.
- Ensure dummy password verification for invalid usernames.
References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools
Here, you will find a curated list of external links that provide in-depth
information, practical solutions, and valuable tools related to
CVE-2026-78551.
| URL | Resource |
|---|---|
| https://github.com/RansomLook/RansomLook/commit/8602740347b0e928ad9fbaf5bc6ff242337dec6b |
CWE - Common Weakness Enumeration
While CVE identifies
specific instances of vulnerabilities, CWE categorizes the common flaws or
weaknesses that can lead to vulnerabilities. CVE-2026-78551 is
associated with the following CWEs:
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification
(CAPEC)
stores attack patterns, which are descriptions of the common attributes and
approaches employed by adversaries to exploit the CVE-2026-78551
weaknesses.
We scan GitHub repositories to detect new proof-of-concept exploits. Following list is a collection of public exploits and proof-of-concepts, which have been published on GitHub (sorted by the most recently updated).
Results are limited to the first 15 repositories due to potential performance issues.
The following list is the news that have been mention
CVE-2026-78551 vulnerability anywhere in the article.
The following table lists the changes that have been made to the
CVE-2026-78551 vulnerability over time.
Vulnerability history details can be useful for understanding the evolution of a vulnerability, and for identifying the most recent changes that may impact the vulnerability's severity, exploitability, or other characteristics.
-
New CVE Received by 5a6e4751-2f3f-4070-9419-94fb35b644e8
Aug. 24, 2026
Action Type Old Value New Value Added Affected [{'vendor': 'ransomlook', 'product': 'ransomlook', 'versions': [{'status': 'affected', 'version': '0', 'versionType': 'semver', 'lessThanOrEqual': '2.0.0'}], 'defaultStatus': 'unaffected'}] Added Description RansomLook contains multiple weaknesses in its authentication endpoint that allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to enumerate valid usernames, perform unrestricted password-guessing attacks, and potentially exhaust application worker resources. For local authentication, the login implementation previously checked whether a submitted username existed before invoking the password hash verification function. Requests containing a nonexistent username therefore returned significantly faster than requests for valid accounts, for which the computationally expensive password verification routine was executed. A remote attacker could measure these response-time differences to determine which usernames correspond to valid RansomLook accounts. In addition, the /login endpoint did not restrict the number or frequency of failed authentication attempts. An attacker could consequently perform password brute-force, dictionary, password-spraying, or credential-stuffing attacks against known accounts without server-side throttling. For valid usernames, each authentication attempt also invokes the password key-derivation function, which consumes a significant amount of CPU time. A sufficiently high rate of login attempts could therefore occupy the application's synchronous Gunicorn workers and cause a denial of service affecting the entire application. The issue has been addressed by always performing password verification using a randomly generated dummy password hash when the supplied username does not exist, eliminating the username-dependent timing discrepancy. Failed authentication attempts are additionally rate-limited per client IP address using Valkey/Redis, with five failed attempts within five minutes resulting in a one-hour block. The reverse-proxy configuration was also updated so that the application derives the client address from a trusted X-Forwarded-For value that cannot be overridden by a client-supplied header. Added CVSS V4.0 AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X Added CWE CWE-400 Added CWE CWE-307 Added Reference https://github.com/RansomLook/RansomLook/commit/8602740347b0e928ad9fbaf5bc6ff242337dec6b -
CVE Modified by 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0
Aug. 24, 2026
Action Type Old Value New Value Added SSVC {'id': 'CVE-2026-78551', 'role': 'CISA Coordinator', 'options': [{'exploitation': 'none'}, {'automatable': 'yes'}, {'technicalImpact': 'partial'}], 'version': '2.0.3', 'timestamp': '2026-08-24T20:07:33.863606Z'}