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Fencer Intel
high 8.1

CVE-2026-85237 json

Missing Rate Limiting in Email OTP Verification Allows Brute-Force Authentication Bypass

published 2mo ago modified 2mo ago also EUVD-2026-70528

cvss
8.1
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 40%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A vulnerability in MISP's email-based one-time password (OTP) authentication flow allowed an attacker to perform an unrestricted number of OTP verification attempts.

The email_otp() endpoint did not apply brute-force protection when validating submitted OTP values. An attacker who had reached the OTP verification stage, for example after successfully providing a user's primary authentication credentials, could repeatedly submit candidate OTP values while the same OTP remained valid. This significantly increased the feasibility of guessing the OTP and bypassing the additional authentication factor, potentially resulting in unauthorized access to the affected user's account.

The issue was exacerbated by the fact that the OTP is associated with the user rather than with an individual pending login session, allowing multiple concurrent sessions to attempt guesses against the same valid OTP.

The patch integrates the existing MISP brute-force protection mechanism into the email OTP flow. Failed OTP attempts are now counted against the user, further attempts are rejected once the configured threshold is reached, and the active OTP is invalidated when the attempt budget is exhausted. Blocklisted users are also prevented from requesting the generation of a fresh OTP. In addition, OTP comparison now uses hash_equals() and validates that the submitted value is a string.

Patch / fix

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CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
2mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.46% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 40% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 8.6 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:L/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 4.0 8.6 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:L/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
NVD 3.1 8.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

Affected products

  • misp misp

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-307 Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts

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.