CVE-2020-26214 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Improper Authentication vulnerability in alerta-server. EPSS puts its 30-day exploitation probability at 65.9% (99th percentile). A fix is available for alerta-server — see the affected versions and patch details below.
LDAP authentication bypass with empty password
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-26214 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE sits: patch-first territory.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,636 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 50–90% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
alerta-server🐍alerta-serverReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
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 binds (eg. default on Active Directory) are affected.
Patches
A fix has been implemented that returns HTTP 401 Unauthorized response for any authentication attempts where the password field is empty. See https://github.com/alerta/alerta/pull/1345
Workarounds
LDAP administrators can disallow unauthenticated bind requests by clients.
References
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4513#section-5.1.2 https://pypi.org/project/alerta-server/8.1.0/
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Add a comment to the issue #1277
- Email us at [email protected]
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | alerta-server | ≥ 8.0.0&&< 8.1.0 | 8.1.0pip install --upgrade 'alerta-server==8.1.0' |
| 🐍PyPI | alerta-server | all versions | 7.5.7pip install --upgrade 'alerta-server==7.5.7' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for alerta-server, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update alerta-server to 8.1.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-26214 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2020-26214 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2020-26214. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
How to detect CVE-2020-26214
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2020-26214 -u https://target- Template
- Alerta < 8.1.0 - Authentication Bypass
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Successful exploitation of this vulnerability allows an attacker to bypass authentication and gain unauthorized access to Alerta.
- Remediation
- Upgrade Alerta to version 8.1.0 or later to mitigate this vulnerability.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (CasperGN, daffainfo), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-26214 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2020-26214 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.