GHSA-5hmm-x8q8-w5jh
CRITICALGHSA-5hmm-x8q8-w5jh is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.1) Improper Authentication vulnerability in alerta-server. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-5hmm-x8q8-w5jh is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
LDAP authentication bypass with empty password
Blast Radius
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 | 8.1.0 |
| 🐍PyPI | alerta-server | all versions | 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. 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 alerta-server to 8.1.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-5hmm-x8q8-w5jh 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-5hmm-x8q8-w5jh 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-5hmm-x8q8-w5jh. 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-5hmm-x8q8-w5jh in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-5hmm-x8q8-w5jh across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.