Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessObtain valid low-privileged user credentials
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DeliveryAuthenticate to target Pingvin Share X instance
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ExploitSubmit TOTP management request with arbitrary password
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ExecutionServer evaluates unawaited Promise as truthy
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PersistPassword guard bypassed, ForbiddenException never thrown
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ImpactTOTP disabled on account without correct password
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A07:2025 - Authentication Failures
ASVS 5.0
V6 - Authentication Authentication algorithm review
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| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires a valid authenticated user account on the target Pingvin Share X instance (PR:L per CVSS vector). The attacker must be able to reach the TOTP management API endpoint over the network (AV:N). No special configuration is required beyond TOTP being available as a feature, which is part of the standard deployment. No user interaction from any other party is needed. Exploitation is limited by the authentication prerequisite - unauthenticated attackers cannot exploit this directly - and by the fact that impact is scoped to the authenticated user's own account (S:U), unless the attacker can leverage TOTP state manipulation to gain escalated access through other means. |
| Impact | The NVD CVSS score of 8.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) accurately reflects network accessibility and low-complexity exploitation but warrants nuance. PR:L confirms exploitation requires a valid user account on the target instance - this is not an unauthenticated attack. The high Integrity and Confidentiality ratings are justified because disabling TOTP can cascade into full account compromise if attackers control their own session or target shared administration patterns. The A:H rating in the vendor vector is arguable; the primary harm is integrity loss (disabling 2FA), with availability impact being secondary and limited. No EPSS data was provided, and there is no CISA KEV listing and no known public POC, which meaningfully reduces the urgency for non-internet-facing self-hosted deployments. For instances exposed to the internet with multiple users, this is a genuine priority because any authenticated user can silently strip 2FA from their account or exploit admin-reset procedures. For private single-user instances, risk is much lower. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker registers or already holds a valid low-privileged account on a Pingvin Share X instance. They navigate to the TOTP settings management endpoint and submit a request to disable or modify TOTP with an arbitrary incorrect password. Because the server-side password check evaluates an unawaited Promise (always truthy), the guard condition never fires, and TOTP is silently disabled on the account - removing the 2FA barrier for subsequent logins. No exploit code or special tooling is required beyond a standard HTTP client. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Aug 12, 2026
Pingvin Share X versions 1.5.0 through 1.18.0 expose an authentication bypass in TOTP management endpoints due to a JavaScript async/await coding defect. An authenticated attacker with a low-privileged account can modify or disable TOTP two-factor authentication settings on an account without supplying a correct password, effectively neutralizing 2FA protections. No active exploitation has been identified in CISA KEV, and no public exploit code has been reported, but the bypass is trivially reachable by any valid user of an affected self-hosted instance.
RemediationAI
Upgrade to Pingvin Share X version 1.18.1, which resolves the issue by adding the missing await keyword to all asynchronous authentication calls in authTotp.service.ts and auth.service.ts. No official workarounds exist - the vendor advisory explicitly states there are none. If a user has been locked out as a result of TOTP state corruption, an administrator must manually reset the affected user's TOTP status directly in the database; instructions are not detailed in the advisory but would require direct database access to the Pingvin Share X data store. Until patching is possible, restricting network access to the instance to trusted users or enabling additional network-layer authentication (e.g., HTTP basic auth via a reverse proxy) would reduce the attack surface, with the trade-off of added login friction for legitimate users. See the advisory at https://github.com/smp46/pingvin-share-x/security/advisories/GHSA-59q6-jvp6-w282 for full details.
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
The affected product is cpe:2.3:a:smp46:pingvin-share-x:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* (versions 1.5.0-1.18.0), a Node.js/TypeScript self-hosted file-sharing platform. The root cause is CWE-303 (Incorrect Implementation of Authentication Algorithm): in both authTotp.service.ts and auth.service.ts, calls to the async methods verifyPassword and authenticateUser were made without the await keyword. In JavaScript, an unawaited Promise is always a truthy object - the conditional guard intended to throw a ForbiddenException on wrong-password attempts never evaluates the resolved boolean, so the check silently passes regardless of what password value is submitted. This is a pure logic defect in the authentication enforcement layer, not a cryptographic weakness.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
PR:L confirmed by requirement for a valid account; A:L rather than A:H because primary harm is integrity loss (2FA bypass), not service disruption.
Primary rating from Vendor (GitHub_M).
CVSS VectorVendor: GitHub_M
Lifecycle Timeline
2DescriptionCVE.org
Pingvin Share X is a secure and easy self-hosted file sharing platform. A vulnerability in versions 1.5.0 through 1.18.0 allow an attacker to bypass password verification when managing Time-based One-Time Password (TOTP) settings. The root cause is a missing await keyword on calls to the asynchronous verifyPassword method in authTotp.service.ts and the authenticateUser method in auth.service.ts. In JavaScript, an unawaited Promise is always truthy. So the logic intended to throw a ForbiddenException when a password is incorrect. It never executes because the expression evaluates the existence of the Promise object rather than its resolved boolean result. The vulnerability is fixed in version 1.18.1 by ensuring all asynchronous authentication calls are properly awaited. There are no official workarounds. If a user is locked out, an administrator must manually reset the user's TOTP status in the database.
Executive ViewAI
Pingvin Share X self-hosted file-sharing installations contain an authentication bypass allowing any valid user to disable two-factor authentication on any account without password verification. This neutralizes a primary defense against account compromise and creates risk of unauthorized access to shared files, with potential for data exfiltration and compliance violations across affected deployments.
No vendor-released patch identified at time of analysis. Interim mitigations: require password re-entry or email verification before permitting TOTP modification, disable TOTP feature entirely until patched, implement network-level access restrictions on TOTP endpoints, monitor and alert on all account authentication-related changes, and restrict low-privileged user permissions to authentication settings.
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-2026-57356
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
GitHub
VulDB
Exploit-DB