CVE-2026-74846 PUBLISHED

Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication versions before 0.10029 for Perl allow timing attacks on stored passwords via eq comparisons in the legacy password verifier.

CVE-2026-5091 was fixed in the realm-based verifier. The legacy verifier, used by the deprecated login method, compares clear-text passwords, crypt hashes and base64 digests with eq, so the comparison time depends on how many leading bytes match.

A remote attacker can use response-time differences to guess the stored password or hash.

Upgrade to Catalyst-Plugin-Authentication 0.10029 or later.

• https://metacpan.org/release/ETHER/Catalyst-Plugin-Authentication-0.10029/changes
• https://github.com/perl-catalyst/Catalyst-Plugin-Authentication/commit/ba4435f1fa6b641e6c8793c88b5433afa83ceafa.patch
• https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-5091

• CWE-208 Observable Timing Discrepancy CWE