MantisBT vulnerable to authentication bypass for some passwords due to PHP type juggling

Description

Due to an incorrect use of loose (==) instead of strict (===) comparison in the authentication code, PHP type juggling will cause interpretation of certain MD5 hashes as numbers, specifically those matching scientific notation.

Impact

On MantisBT instances configured to use the MD5 login method, user accounts having a password hash evaluating to zero (i.e. matching regex ^0+[Ee][0-9]+$) are vulnerable, allowing an attacker knowing the victim's username to login without knowledge of their actual password, using any other password having a hash evaluating to zero, for example comito5 (0e579603064547166083907005281618).

No password bruteforcing for individual users is needed, thus $g_max_failed_login_count does not protect against the attack.

Patches

  • https://github.com/mantisbt/mantisbt/commit/966554a19cf1bdbcfbfb3004766979faa748f9a2

Workarounds

Check the database for vulnerable accounts, and change those users' passwords, e.g. for MySQL:

SELECT username, email FROM mantis_user_table WHERE password REGEXP '^0+[Ee][0-9]+$'

References

  • https://mantisbt.org/bugs/view.php?id=35967

Credits

Thanks to Harry Sintonen / Reversec for discovering and reporting the issue.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
high
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2025-11-03 17:07:36 UTC
Updated
2026-03-06 00:14:41 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2025-11-03 17:07:36 UTC
NVD published
2025-11-04

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.08% 24.66%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
9.1 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
8.8 4.0
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and stable.
Attack requirements (AT:N)
No additional preconditions are required beyond normal reachability.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No privileges are required.
User interaction (UI:N)
No user interaction is required.
Vulnerable system confidentiality impact (VC:L)
Limited confidentiality impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system integrity impact (VI:H)
High integrity impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system availability impact (VA:N)
No availability impact on the vulnerable system.
Subsequent system confidentiality impact (SC:N)
No confidentiality impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system integrity impact (SI:N)
No integrity impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system availability impact (SA:N)
No availability impact on subsequent systems.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-305 Authentication Bypass by Primary Weakness
CWE-697 Incorrect Comparison

Credits

  • dregad (remediation_developer)
  • piru (finder)

Affected packages (1)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
composer mantisbt/mantisbt < 2.27.2 2.27.2

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence