Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessDiscover exposed Wazuh API on port 55000
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DeliveryEnumerate or guess valid usernames
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ExploitLaunch parallel HTTP POST burst to /security/user/authenticate
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ExecutionRace condition bypasses IP block before threshold triggers
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PersistExceed max_login_attempts policy with additional guesses
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ImpactSuccessfully authenticate with discovered credentials
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A07:2025 - Authentication Failures
ASVS 5.0
V6 - Authentication Brute-force prevention, rate limiting
|
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires network-level access to the Wazuh server API endpoint (POST /security/user/authenticate, default TCP port 55000) and the ability to issue concurrent HTTP requests - achievable with any standard multi-threaded or async HTTP client library. No authentication, no special configuration, and no specific platform version beyond Wazuh 4.0.0-4.14.3 is required. The attack is effective against default Wazuh installations with the API accessible over the network. Limiting factors: the attacker must still correctly guess valid credentials after bypassing the rate limit, meaning weak or default passwords are a necessary precondition for actual account compromise; no direct code execution or data access occurs from the bypass alone. If the Wazuh API is firewall-restricted to management-only networks (a recommended hardening practice), the attack surface is substantially reduced. The CVSS PR:N confirms the endpoint is reachable without prior authentication. |
| Impact | The CVSS 6.5 score with vector AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N reflects a network-accessible unauthenticated attack with no complexity barriers, which accurately captures the ease of triggering the bypass. However, CVSS does not capture the bounded impact: the vulnerability amplifies guessing capacity but does not directly compromise credentials - attackers still need to successfully guess a valid password, making actual exploitation dependent on weak credential hygiene. SSVC rates this as automatable with partial technical impact, consistent with scripted parallel HTTP burst tooling being trivially constructible. EPSS at 0.05% (14th percentile) sharply contrasts with the SSVC automatable classification, suggesting that despite the ease of exploitation, real-world threat actors have not broadly operationalized this vector at time of analysis - no CISA KEV listing corroborates active exploitation. The realistic priority is medium: environments with Wazuh APIs exposed to untrusted networks and weak passwords face genuine credential brute-force risk; environments with API access restricted to management networks have substantially reduced exposure. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An unauthenticated attacker with network access to the Wazuh API endpoint uses a scripted HTTP client to dispatch dozens of concurrent POST /security/user/authenticate requests in a single burst, each attempting a different password for a known or enumerated username. Because the IP block is not atomically enforced, all parallel requests are processed before the counter trips, doubling or more the effective guessing rate beyond the configured policy. The attack is repeatable and automatable with standard concurrency libraries, with no specialized tooling required beyond a multi-threaded HTTP client. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Jul 24, 2026
Wazuh's server API brute-force protection on POST /security/user/authenticate is bypassable via concurrent request flooding in versions 4.0.0 through 4.14.3, allowing unauthenticated remote attackers to submit substantially more credential guesses than the configured max_login_attempts policy (default: 50) permits. The race condition in the IP-block enforcement logic processes parallel HTTP bursts before the counter triggers a block, effectively multiplying password guessing capacity - for example, processing 100 attempts where only 50 should be permitted. No public exploit is confirmed in KEV, but SSVC classifies exploitation status as POC and automatable, while EPSS at 0.05% (14th percentile) indicates limited observed in-the-wild activity. Vendor-released patch version 4.14.4 resolves the issue.
RemediationAI
The primary fix is upgrading to Wazuh 4.14.4, confirmed by the vendor release at https://github.com/wazuh/wazuh/releases/tag/v4.14.4 and security advisory GHSA-m2mr-xhhv-jx58. For deployments unable to upgrade immediately, restrict network access to the Wazuh API (default port 55000) to trusted management hosts only using firewall rules or network segmentation - this eliminates remote unauthenticated access entirely and is the highest-impact compensating control. Lowering the max_login_attempts configuration value reduces the per-burst window of opportunity but does not eliminate the race condition and may cause legitimate lockouts. Enabling alerting on high-frequency parallel authentication events to the API endpoint provides detection capability in the interim. Note that the release notes for v4.14.4 also include fixes for heap-based null write buffer underflows in the manager and agent components, making the upgrade advisable beyond just this CVE.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
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Technical ContextAI · show details
Wazuh is an open-source SIEM and XDR platform (cpe:2.3:a:wazuh:wazuh:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*) providing threat detection, prevention, and response capabilities. The vulnerability maps to CWE-307 (Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts), a class of flaw where rate-limiting or lockout mechanisms are not implemented atomically under concurrent load. The Wazuh RESTful API endpoint POST /security/user/authenticate enforces max_login_attempts correctly for sequential requests by incrementing a per-IP counter, but because the counter check and block application are not serialized under concurrent access, multiple parallel requests can all pass the check before any single one triggers the block. This is a classic TOCTOU (time-of-check to time-of-use) variant at the application layer. The vulnerability has been present since version 4.0.0, suggesting the race condition was introduced early in the API architecture and persisted undetected across multiple major releases.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
Network-accessible unauthenticated endpoint (AV:N, PR:N, UI:N) with no complexity barrier (AC:L); C:L and I:L reflect potential credential compromise rather than direct system impact; A:N as the bypass itself causes no availability harm.
Primary rating from GitHub Advisory.
CVSS VectorGitHub Advisory
Lifecycle Timeline
3DescriptionGitHub Advisory
Wazuh is a free and open source platform used for threat prevention, detection, and response. From version 4.0.0 to before version 4.14.4, Wazuh's server API brute-force protection for POST /security/user/authenticate can be bypassed by sending concurrent authentication requests. Although the configured threshold (max_login_attempts, default 50) is enforced correctly for sequential requests, a parallel burst allows significantly more failed login attempts to be processed before the IP block is applied. This enables an attacker to perform more password guesses than the configured policy intends (e.g., 100 attempts processed where 50 should be allowed). This issue has been patched in version 4.14.4.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Authentication bypass attacks exploit flaws in the verification mechanisms that control access to systems and applications.
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EUVD-2026-26268
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
GitHub
VulDB
Exploit-DB