lowCVSS 3.7Vulnerability

GHSA-53hj-r94p-8c8f

### Summary The kanidmd OAuth2 token-exchange (`/oauth2/token`) and token-introspection (`/oauth2/token/introspect`) endpoints compare the supplied `client_secret` against the stored secret using Rust's `PartialEq` on `String`, which short-circuits on the first mismatching byte. This produces an observable timing discrepancy that varies with the length of the matching prefix. ### Details - https://github.com/kanidm/kanidm/blob/master/server/lib/src/idm/oauth2.rs#L1135 — variable-time comparison in `check_oauth2_token_exchange` - https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/208.html — CWE-208: Observable Timing Discrepancy ### PoC Static analysis only — no timing-recovery script was run because remote recovery of a 48-byte high-entropy secret over HTTPS is not practically demonstrable. The variable-time behaviour is established by inspection: ```rust // server/lib/src/idm/oauth2.rs:1135 (check_oauth2_token_exchange) if authz_secret == &secret { … } else { return Err(Oauth2Error::AuthenticationRequired); } ``` `String: PartialEq` delegates to `<[u8] as PartialEq>::eq`, which checks length equality then iterates byte-by-byte and returns on the first difference. ### Impact An unauthenticated network attacker who can reach the OAuth2 endpoints can submit arbitrary `client_id`/`client_secret` pairs and observe response latency. In principle the early-exit comparison leaks the position of the first mismatching byte, providing a timing oracle toward incremental recovery of a confidential client's secret. In practice the stored secret is a server-generated 48-character high-entropy string, the comparison runs inside an async tokio handler behind TLS, and network jitter is orders of magnitude larger than a single byte-compare — so remote recovery is not considered realistic with current techniques. This is a hardening issue rather than a practically exploitable vulnerability. ### Affected versions All published `kanidmd_lib` releases; the comparison is still variable-ti

Properties

ghsa_id
GHSA-53hj-r94p-8c8f
severity
low
summary
Kanidm has non-constant-time comparison of OAuth2 client_secret
cvss_score
3.7
cve_id
GHSA-53hj-r94p-8c8f
cvss_vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
is_ghsa_only
true
ghsa_published
2026-05-06T23:37:56Z
source_url
https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-53hj-r94p-8c8f
ghsa_updated
2026-05-06T23:37:58Z

Related Entities (4)

VULNERABLE_TO (1)

[Software]rust/kanidm

AFFECTS (1)

[Software]rust/kanidm

HAS_WEAKNESS (1)

[Weakness]Observable Timing Discrepancy

REPORTED_BY (1)

[Source]GitHub Advisory Database

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GHSA-53hj-r94p-8c8f (CVSS 3.7) — Ninja Signal Threat Intelligence | Ninja Signal