LightRAG: Plaintext Passwords Compared Without Constant-Time Function (HKUDS LightRAG)
At a glance
- Source
- NVD
- EPSS
- EPSS 0.45 % · percentile 39 ()
- State
- PUBLISHED
- Published
- Updated
- Assigner
- GitHub_M
- NVD status
- Deferred
Description
LightRAG provides simple and fast retrieval-augmented generation. Prior to 1.5.5, verify_password in lightrag/api/passwords.py compares plaintext AUTH_ACCOUNTS password values with Python's == operator. The comparison can return after the first mismatching byte, creating response-time differences based on password length and matching prefixes. A network attacker with sufficiently low-latency access can repeatedly query the /login endpoint and use the timing oracle to recover a plaintext-configured password character by character. Deployments using bcrypt-prefixed password values are not affected by this comparison path. This issue is fixed in version 1.5.5.
Weaknesses (CWE)
- CWE-208 — Observable Timing Discrepancy
References
Scores
| Version | Score | Vector | Scored by |
|---|---|---|---|
| CVSS 3.1 | MEDIUM 5.9 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N | GitHub_M |
| CVSS 3.1 | MEDIUM 5.9 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N | NVD · security-advisories@github.com (Secondary) |
Advisories
- GHSA-c759-cx9p-mrwq — lightrag-hku: Plaintext Passwords Compared Without Constant-Time Function
- PYSEC-2026-4061 — lightrag-hku: Plaintext Passwords Compared Without Constant-Time Function
European references
- ENISA EUVD · EUVD-2026-84546
- GCVE · GCVE-0-2026-85725
Affected products
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
| HKUDS · LightRAG | affected < 1.5.5 |
Sources
| Source | Licence |
|---|---|
| CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5) | CVE Program Terms of Use |
| EPSS (FIRST.org) | FIRST — attribution requested |
| ENISA EUVD | ENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged |
| NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feeds | Public domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD |