Netatalk CVE-2026-44061

Netatalk is an open-source implementation of the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP), enabling Linux and Unix systems to serve files to macOS clients over a network. The vulnerability resides in the DES-ECB (Data Encryption Standard in Electronic Codebook mode) authentication pathway. CWE-208 (Observable Timing Discrepancy) describes side-channel weaknesses where differences in processing time during cryptographic operations leak information about secret values to an observer. DES-ECB is itself a structurally weak cipher mode - ECB is deterministic and lacks semantic security - making its use in an authentication context compoundingly risky. The timing discrepancy most likely arises from non-constant-time comparison or decryption logic during the auth handshake, permitting an attacker to build a statistical timing oracle by issuing many probes and measuring latency variations. CPE cpe:2.3:a:netatalk:netatalk:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* confirms this affects the Netatalk application directly, not an OS or library dependency.