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Fencer Intel
critical 9.8

CVE-2018-6521 json

SimpleSAMLphp Use of insecure connection charset (sqlauth module)

published 8y ago modified 4mo ago also GHSA-qv5p-6wrc-79wg , EUVD-2022-5030

cvss
9.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
3.1%
EPSS 3.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 87%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The sqlauth module in SimpleSAMLphp before 1.15.2 relies on the MySQL utf8 charset, which truncates queries upon encountering four-byte characters. There might be a scenario in which this allows remote attackers to bypass intended access restrictions.

Patch / fix

  • packagist simplesamlphp/simplesamlphp 1.15.2
  • simplesamlphp simplesamlphp 1.15.2
  • simplesamlphp Debian 14, Debian 12 1.15.2-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2018-6521

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2018-6521 updated cvss 6.3

php-simplesamlphp-saml2: insecure connection charset in sqlauth module

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

3.05% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 87% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • lists.debian.org https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/02/msg00008.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 9.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
GitHub 3.0 9.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
packagist simplesamlphp/simplesamlphp
<1.15.2
1.15.2

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.