GHSA-xm76-r88j-vm3g
HIGHGHSA-xm76-r88j-vm3g is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Information Exposure vulnerability in automad/automad. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-xm76-r88j-vm3g is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Automad has Broken Access Control: Unauthenticated exposure of administrator bcrypt password hashes and TOTP secrets via public API endpoint
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-xm76-r88j-vm3g.
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
GHSA-xm76-r88j-vm3g plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 363,908 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
automad/automadReal-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
Summary
A Broken Access Control vulnerability allows an unauthenticated attacker to retrieve the bcrypt password hash of every administrator account with a single POST request. The /_api/user-collection/create-first-user setup endpoint remains publicly accessible once initial configuration is complete and returns full serialized user data in the JSON response body.
Details
Affected version:
- bcrypt hash exposure:
>= 2.0.0-alpha.1, <= 2.0.0-beta.27 - TOTP secret exposure: only
2.0.0-beta.27
Impact
Any Automad installation reachable over HTTP is at risk no prior account, credentials, or special network position are required to exploit this vulnerability.
Potential impacts include:
- Credential hash exposure enabling offline brute-force or dictionary attacks: bcrypt password hashes for every administrator are returned in a single unauthenticated response. While hashes are not plaintext passwords, the salt embedded in the hash is not secret it is visible in the response. Administrators using common or weak passwords are at direct risk of having their plaintext password recovered.
- TOTP secret exposure:
The TOTP secret is included in the response starting with version
2.0.0-beta.27, the first release introducing TOTP-based two-factor authentication. If an attacker successfully recovers a plaintext password, two-factor authentication can be bypassed entirely. Only version2.0.0-beta.27is affected by this specific issue. - Information disclosure: The response discloses the absolute filesystem path to the configuration directory. While the directory structure is publicly documented, the absolute server path may expose environment-specific information.
Remediation
Update to version 2.0.0-beta.28 or later.
This issue was reported privately and fixed prior to public disclosure.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | automad/automad | ≥ 2.0.0-alpha.1&&< 2.0.0-beta.28 | 2.0.0-beta.28 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for automad/automad. 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 automad/automad to 2.0.0-beta.28 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-xm76-r88j-vm3g 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-xm76-r88j-vm3g 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-xm76-r88j-vm3g. 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-xm76-r88j-vm3g in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-xm76-r88j-vm3g across Packagist dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.