CVE-2021-41171 Explained : Impact and Mitigation

eLabFTW is an open source electronic lab notebook manager that had a vulnerability allowing attackers to bypass brute-force protection by using forged PHPSESSID values. This issue was fixed in version 4.1.0.

Understanding CVE-2021-41171

What is CVE-2021-41171?

eLabFTW versions before 4.1.0 were vulnerable to attackers bypassing the brute-force protection mechanism by using multiple forged PHPSESSID values in the HTTP Cookie header.

The Impact of CVE-2021-41171

The vulnerability had a CVSS base score of 5.9, with high confidentiality impact, affecting the attack complexity for users.

Technical Details of CVE-2021-41171

Vulnerability Description

eLabFTW prior to version 4.1.0 allowed attackers to circumvent the brute-force protection mechanism using forged PHPSESSID values.

Affected Systems and Versions

Product: elabftw
Vendor: elabftw
Versions Affected: < 4.1.0

Exploitation Mechanism

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: High
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None

Mitigation and Prevention

Immediate Steps to Take

Upgrade eLabFTW to version 4.1.0 to address the vulnerability.
Implement rate limitation upstream of the eLabFTW service.

Long-Term Security Practices

Follow OWASP recommendations for protecting against online guessing attacks.

Patching and Updates

Upgrade to version 4.1.0 to ensure protection against this vulnerability.