CVE-2026-23901 PUBLISHED

Apache Shiro: Brute force attack possible to determine valid user names

Assigner: apache
Reserved: 17.01.2026 Published: 10.02.2026 Updated: 10.02.2026

Observable Timing Discrepancy vulnerability in Apache Shiro.

This issue affects Apache Shiro: from 1., 2. before 2.0.7.

Users are recommended to upgrade to version 2.0.7 or later, which fixes the issue.

Prior to Shiro 2.0.7, code paths for non-existent vs. existing users are different enough, that a brute-force attack may be able to tell, by timing the requests only, determine if the request failed because of a non-existent user vs. wrong password.

The most likely attack vector is a local attack only. Shiro security model  https://shiro.apache.org/security-model.html#username_enumeration  discusses this as well.

Typically, brute force attack can be mitigated at the infrastructure level.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L/UI:A/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:N/SA:N/S:N/AU:Y/R:A/V:C/RE:L/U:Green
CVSS Score: 1

Product Status

Vendor Apache Software Foundation
Product Apache Shiro
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 0 to 2.0.7 (excl.)

Credits

  • 4ra1n finder
  • Y4tacker finder
  • lprimak remediation developer

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-208 Observable Timing Discrepancy CWE