CVE-2025-64526 — strapi / strapi
Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication AttemptsStrapi is an open source headless content management system. In Strapi versions prior to 5.45.0, the rate-limit middleware in the users-permissions plugin derived its rate-limit key in part from ctx.request.body.email, including on routes whose body schema does not contain an email field (/auth/local, /auth/reset-password, /auth/change-password). An unauthenticated attacker could include an arbitrary email value in the request body to obtain a fresh rate-limit key per request, effectively bypassing per-IP throttling on those routes and enabling high-volume credential brute-force, password-reset code brute-force, and credential-stuffing attempts. The rate-limit key was constructed as ${userIdentifier}:${requestPath}:${ctx.request.ip}, where userIdentifier = ctx.request.body.email. On routes that legitimately use email as their identifier (e.g. /auth/forgot-password, /auth/local/register), this scoping is correct. On routes that use a different identifier (identifier for login, code for password reset, currentPassword for password change), the email field was not part of the route contract, but the middleware still incorporated it into the key, allowing a caller to rotate the value and obtain a unique key on every request. The patch in version 5.45.0 maintains an allow-list of routes that legitimately key on the email field and excludes that key component on every other route the middleware is mounted on. OAuth callback paths (/connect/*) are treated identifier-less. On routes outside the allow-list, the middleware now falls back to a fixed identifier-less key, ensuring per-IP throttling remains effective even when the request body is attacker-controlled.
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Frequently Asked Questions
A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.
CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.
A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.
Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.
Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.
SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.