GHSA-3v6j-v3qc-cxff
MEDIUMDenial of service from unlimited password lengths
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.
Blast Radius
getkirby/cms🐘getkirby/cms🐘getkirby/cms🐘getkirby/cms🐘getkirby/cmsReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
TL;DR
This vulnerability affects all Kirby sites with user accounts (unless Kirby's API and Panel are disabled in the config). The real-world impact of this vulnerability is limited, however we still recommend to update to one of the patch releases because they also fix more severe vulnerabilities.
Introduction
Denial of service (DoS) is a type of attack in which an attacker floods a service with the intention to limit performance or availability for legitimate users of the service.
In the variation described in this advisory (a so called application layer denial of service attack), it is performed by causing a computationally expensive task to be run on the server. This may then cause a performance bottleneck.
Impact
Kirby's authentication endpoint did not limit the password length. This allowed attackers to provide a password with a length up to the server's maximum request body length. Validating that password against the user's actual password requires hashing the provided password, which requires more CPU and memory resources (and therefore processing time) the longer the provided password gets. This could be abused by an attacker to cause the website to become unresponsive or unavailable.
Because Kirby comes with a built-in brute force protection, the impact of this vulnerability is limited to 10 failed logins from each IP address and 10 failed logins for each existing user per hour.
Patches
The problem has been patched in Kirby 3.5.8.3, Kirby 3.6.6.3, Kirby 3.7.5.2, Kirby 3.8.4.1 and Kirby 3.9.6. Please update to one of these or a later version to fix the vulnerability.
In all of the mentioned releases, we have added password length limits in the affected code so that passwords longer than 1000 bytes are immediately blocked, both when setting a password and when logging in.
Credits
Thanks to Shankar Acharya (@5hank4r) for responsibly reporting the identified issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | getkirby/cms | all versions | 3.5.8.3 |
| 🐘Packagist | getkirby/cms | ≥ 3.6.0&&< 3.6.6.3 | 3.6.6.3 |
| 🐘Packagist | getkirby/cms | ≥ 3.7.0&&< 3.7.5.2 | 3.7.5.2 |
| 🐘Packagist | getkirby/cms | ≥ 3.8.0&&< 3.8.4.1 | 3.8.4.1 |
| 🐘Packagist | getkirby/cms | ≥ 3.9.0&&< 3.9.6 | 3.9.6 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for getkirby/cms. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update getkirby/cms to 3.5.8.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-3v6j-v3qc-cxff 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 pinpoints whether GHSA-3v6j-v3qc-cxff is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to GHSA-3v6j-v3qc-cxff. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-3v6j-v3qc-cxff in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-3v6j-v3qc-cxff across Packagist dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.