Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
-
AccessAuthenticate as staff user
-
ExploitQuery Admin API endpoints
-
ExecutionObserve ordering discrepancies in responses
-
ImpactInfer relative password-hash ordering of other staff
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
ASVS 5.0
V6 - Authentication Timing-safe comparisons
|
| Exploitation Conditions | Requires an authenticated account with staff-level privileges on the target Ghost instance (PR:L) with access to the Admin API - this is an insider/compromised-account scenario, not remote-unauthenticated. Exploitation is further limited by high attack complexity (AC:H) and an attack prerequisite (AT:P in the 4.0 vector), meaning the attacker must perform repeated, carefully-crafted Admin API queries and analyze response discrepancies. Even when successful, the outcome is bounded: it only discloses the relative ordering of other staff users' password hashes and, per the description, does not directly reveal the hashes or enable practical password recovery. |
| Impact | This is a low-severity, low-priority issue, and the available signals are consistent in pointing that way. The vendor-supplied CVSS 4.0 vector (AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N) scores only 2.3: although the Admin API is network-reachable, exploitation requires an existing authenticated staff account (PR:L), high attack complexity (AC:H), and a present attack prerequisite (AT:P), and the only impact is a low confidentiality leak (VC:L) with no integrity or availability effect. The leak itself - the relative ordering of other staff users' password hashes - is explicitly described as not revealing the hashes and not enabling practical password recovery (consistent with CWE-203, observable discrepancy / side channel). No EPSS score was provided, there is no CISA KEV listing, and no public exploit code was referenced, so there is no public exploit identified at time of analysis and no evidence of active exploitation. No signals conflict here; the only caveat is the absence of EPSS/exploit-maturity data, but given the trivial impact and insider-only prerequisite this does not change the low-priority conclusion. Patch available: upgrading to Ghost 6.64.0 or later is a routine, non-urgent remediation. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A malicious or compromised staff-level user, already authenticated to a Ghost instance, repeatedly queries the Admin API and uses response differences to infer the relative ordering of other staff users' stored password hashes. Because the attack has high complexity and only yields hash ordering - not the hashes themselves - it provides minimal practical value and does not enable password cracking. No public proof-of-concept was referenced. |
Get an e-mail when this CVE is exploited, patched or re-scored. Free account.
Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Oct 02, 2026
Ghost CMS versions from 0.7.2 up to (but not including) 6.64.0 leak password-hash ordering information to authenticated, staff-level users through the Admin API, allowing an insider or a holder of a compromised staff account to learn how other staff members' password hashes are sorted relative to one another. Exploitation requires authenticated staff access with Admin API reachability (PR:L), is rated high complexity (AC:H) because it depends on repeated, carefully crafted queries and the analysis of response discrepancies, and is bounded in impact: per the vendor advisory and independent assessment, the hashes themselves are not disclosed and practical password recovery is not enabled. No public exploit code and no confirmed active exploitation were identified at time of analysis, consistent with the very low CVSS 4.0 score of 2.3 and the assessed CVSS 3.1 vector of AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N.
RemediationAI
Upgrade Ghost to version 6.64.0 or later, which is the vendor-released fix referenced in GHSA-53vv-xm9f-mm82; patch availability is confirmed by the vendor, so this is the primary and preferred remediation and requires no configuration workaround. Because exploitation is gated on authenticated staff-level access to the Admin API, the most effective compensating controls until the upgrade can be applied are access-reduction measures: audit staff accounts and remove or downgrade any user who does not require Admin API privileges, since reducing the number of staff-level sessions directly shrinks the attack surface (trade-off: operational inconvenience for editors and integrators who rely on API automation). Rotating staff passwords is only marginally useful here because the leak is about hash ordering, not hash values, and rotation will not change the fact that ordering information can be inferred - its main benefit is invalidating any sessions tied to accounts that may already be compromised. Restricting Admin API reachability to trusted networks or a VPN, and monitoring Admin API logs for repeated, anomalous query patterns from a single staff account, are reasonable secondary mitigations with the trade-off of limiting legitimate remote administrative workflows. There is no vendor-released patch gap to work around; no vendor-recommended feature toggle or configuration flag that disables the affected behavior has been identified, so upgrading remains the only complete fix.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in npm
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
The issue is a CWE-203 (Observable Discrepancy) side channel in the Ghost Admin API. Ghost stores staff credentials as password hashes (typically bcrypt) and its Admin API exposes operations that, when queried by an authenticated staff user, produce responses whose differences reveal the relative sort order of other users' stored hashes. What leaks is ordinal information about the hash values - not the hashes themselves, not salts, and not plaintext - so the practical value to an attacker is limited: it narrows search space or ordering assumptions but does not permit offline cracking or direct credential recovery. The root cause class is a non-constant, data-dependent response observable in an administrative interface that should not expose any hash-derived attribute across user boundaries. The high attack complexity reflects the need for repeated, precise API queries and comparison of subtle response variations, and the attack-prerequisite flag in the CVSS 4.0 vector (AT:P) reflects that the attacker must already hold a valid staff-level session and the ability to reach the Admin API. The single CPE, cpe:2.3:a:tryghost:ghost:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*, confirms that all distributions of the Ghost application across the affected version range inherit the flaw, spanning many years of releases from 0.7.2 onward.
Know when Ghost gets its next vulnerability
- Watch products and get an email when something new is published
- Check this CVE against your own stack and servers
- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
No credit card · 7-day full trial
Severity by source
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Admin API is network-reachable (AV:N) but requires a staff account (PR:L) and difficult inference-based exploitation (AC:H); only a minor confidentiality leak of hash ordering (C:L), no integrity or availability impact.
Primary rating from Vendor (VulnCheck).
CVSS VectorVendor: VulnCheck
Lifecycle Timeline
1DescriptionCVE.org
Ghost from 0.7.2 before 6.64.0 contains an information disclosure vulnerability in the Admin API that allows staff-level users to determine the relative ordering of other staff users' password hashes. Authenticated staff users can query the Admin API to infer hash ordering, though this does not directly reveal hashes or enable practical password recovery.
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
Information disclosure occurs when an application unintentionally exposes sensitive data that aids attackers in reconnaissance or directly compromises security.
Ghost CMS versions 5.105.0-5.130.5 and 6.0.0-6.10.3 contain an authentication bypass in their two-factor authentication
Arbitrary code execution in Ghost CMS versions 0.7.2 through 6.19.0 allows authenticated attackers with theme upload pri
An arbitrary file upload vulnerability in the file upload module of Ghost CMS v4.42.0 allows attackers to execute arbitr
An arbitrary file upload vulnerability in the file upload module of Ghost v4.39.0 allows attackers to execute arbitrary
SQL injection in Ghost CMS versions 3.24.0 through 6.19.0 allows unauthenticated attackers to read arbitrary database da
Ghost through 5.85.1 allows remote attackers to bypass an authentication rate-limit protection mechanism by using many X
Ghost through 5.76.0 allows stored XSS, and resultant privilege escalation in which a contributor can take over any acco
Ghost before 5.82.0 allows CSV Injection during a member CSV export. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.8), this vulnerability
Server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in Ghost CMS < 3.10.0 allows an attacker to scan local or external netw
Ghost before 5.42.1 allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files within the active theme's folder via /assets/built%2
Ghost is a Node.js CMS. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication
Ghost is an open source content management system. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.5), this vulnerability is remotely expl
EUVD-2026-91426
GHSA-7qfr-6f3v-xhxf
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
Exploit-DB