Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessIdentify Grav CMS admin endpoint
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DeliverySend high-volume timed nonce probe requests
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ExploitMeasure per-byte response latency differences
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ExecutionRecover valid CSRF nonce byte-by-byte
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PersistSubmit forged request with recovered nonce
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ImpactExecute unauthorized state-changing admin action
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
ASVS 5.0
V6 - Authentication Timing attack prevention
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| Exploitation Conditions | The attacker must be able to send a large volume of HTTP requests directly to the Grav CMS nonce validation endpoint and measure response timing with sub-millisecond precision - feasible from low-latency network positions such as co-located infrastructure or LAN, but difficult over high-jitter internet paths. No authentication is required for the attacker to probe the nonce oracle. No special non-default Grav configuration is required; the flaw exists in the default CSRF validation path used whenever nonce-protected forms are processed. Exploitation is limited by the need for statistical noise reduction across many requests, the availability of a network path with stable, low latency, and the fact that forged requests only produce meaningful impact if a legitimate admin session is active at the time the forged action is submitted. |
| Impact | The CVSS 4.0 score of 6.3 with AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N accurately reflects a network-reachable but technically demanding attack. AC:H and AT:P capture the core constraint: timing attacks require a high volume of requests and sub-millisecond measurement precision, which network jitter in internet-facing deployments can mask. Integrity impact is low (VI:L), bounded to bypassing CSRF protection without code execution or data exfiltration. No CISA KEV listing and no known public exploit code reduce operational urgency. EPSS data was not provided, so exploitation probability must be inferred as low-to-moderate given the attack complexity. Real-world risk is highest for Grav installations reachable from low-latency attacker positions (co-located cloud infrastructure, same datacenter) and lowest for sites behind high-latency internet paths. The fix is low-risk and trivial to apply, making deferral hard to justify. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker with low-latency network access to the Grav admin endpoint sends thousands of HTTP POST requests with systematically varied CSRF nonce guesses, measuring response latency for each candidate at every byte position. Using statistical comparison to identify which guesses produce marginally longer response times, the attacker reconstructs a valid nonce byte-by-byte and then submits a forged state-changing request - such as creating an admin account or modifying site content - that the server accepts as CSRF-validated. No public proof-of-concept code has been identified at time of analysis. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Aug 25, 2026
Timing side-channel in Grav CMS before 2.0.16 allows remote attackers to weaken CSRF protection by recovering valid nonce values through statistical analysis of server response latency. The Utils::verifyNonce() function uses PHP's non-constant-time === operator instead of hash_equals(), enabling byte-by-byte nonce reconstruction via repeated probing requests. No public exploit is identified at time of analysis, but the CWE-208 vulnerability class is well-documented in security literature and the technique is reproducible with standard tooling.
RemediationAI
Upgrade Grav CMS to version 2.0.16 or later, which replaces the non-constant-time === comparison with hash_equals() in Utils::verifyNonce(). The vendor advisory is at https://github.com/getgrav/grav/security/advisories/GHSA-38p6-h87p-r4cg. For installations that cannot be upgraded immediately, place the admin interface behind a network access control such as a VPN, IP allowlist, or reverse proxy with authentication - this prevents untrusted attackers from issuing the high-volume timed requests required for nonce recovery, though it does not eliminate the underlying flaw. Rate-limiting the admin endpoint also raises the bar for timing attacks by introducing artificial latency variance, with the trade-off of added latency for legitimate administrators.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 2 packages in composer, euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
Grav CMS (CPE: cpe:2.3:a:getgrav:grav:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*) is a PHP flat-file CMS. The affected code path is Utils::verifyNonce(), which validates CSRF nonces protecting state-changing actions. PHP's === string comparison operator short-circuits at the first mismatched byte, creating a timing discrepancy proportional to the length of the correct prefix. CWE-208 (Observable Timing Discrepancy) describes this root cause class precisely: an attacker systematically varies nonce guesses and uses statistical timing analysis to identify which candidates share progressively longer matching prefixes with the stored nonce, ultimately reconstructing the full value. PHP provides hash_equals() specifically for constant-time comparison of security tokens, making the fix a targeted one-line change.
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Severity by source
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Network vector with high complexity (statistical timing attack requiring many requests and low-latency access); no authentication needed to probe; integrity impact limited to CSRF bypass with no confidentiality or availability consequence.
Primary rating from Vendor (VulnCheck).
CVSS VectorVendor: VulnCheck
Lifecycle Timeline
1DescriptionCVE.org
Grav CMS before 2.0.16 contains a timing vulnerability in Utils::verifyNonce() that uses non-constant-time string comparison with the === operator instead of hash_equals() for CSRF nonce validation. Attackers can measure response timing differences to recover valid nonce values byte-by-byte through multiple requests, weakening CSRF protection below its intended security margin.
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
Cross-Site Request Forgery exploits the automatic credential inclusion behavior of web browsers.
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EUVD-2026-65215
GHSA-38p6-h87p-r4cg
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Exploit-DB