CVE-2020-26214
CriticalLDAP authentication bypass with empty password
Published Nov 6, 2020 · Updated Jul 9, 2026 · Also known as GHSA-5hmm-x8q8-w5jh, PYSEC-2020-159
Key Facts
Patch immediately- CVE-2020-26214 is a critical-severity vulnerability (CVSS 9.3 v4) affecting Alerta (Alerta Project), alerta-server (pypi).
- It is not listed in any known-exploited vulnerabilities catalog. No public exploit code is known.
- EPSS estimates a 66% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.
- Fixed versions are available, including Alerta 7.5.7, alerta-server 2bfa31779a4c9df2fa68fa4d0c5c909698c5ef65, alerta-server 7.5.7.
- Brandefense priority: patch immediately, because it is very likely to be exploited soon.
CVSS v4
9.3
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
EPSS (30-day exploit likelihood)
66%
Higher than 99.2% of all scored CVEs
Exploited in the wild
No known
Not in a known-exploited catalog
Public exploit code
None known
Get the full CVE-2020-26214 brief as a PDF
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Description
In Alerta before version 8.1.0, users may be able to bypass LDAP authentication if they provide an empty password when Alerta server is configure to use LDAP as the authorization provider. Only deployments where LDAP servers are configured to allow unauthenticated authentication mechanism for anonymous authorization are affected. A fix has been implemented in version 8.1.0 that returns HTTP 401 Unauthorized response for any authentication attempts where the password field is empty. As a workaround LDAP administrators can disallow unauthenticated bind requests by clients.
Affected Products
3 affected entries in total| Product | Affected versions | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| AlertaAlerta Project | >= < 8.1.0 | 7.5.7 |
| alerta-serverpypi | >= 8.0.0 | 8.1.0 |
Patched Releases
Alerta
7.5.7
alerta-server
2bfa31779a4c9df2fa68fa4d0c5c909698c5ef65, 7.5.7, 8.1.0
Timeline
Publicly disclosed
Nov 6, 2020
Last updated
Jul 9, 2026
Weakness Type
- CWE-287 Improper Authentication
References
- advisoryGHSA advisory
- advisoryhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-26214
- articlehttps://github.com/alerta/alerta/commit/2bfa31779a4c9df2fa68fa4d0c5c909698c5ef65
- articlehttps://github.com/alerta/alerta/issues/1277
- articlehttps://github.com/alerta/alerta/pull/1345
FAQ
Common Questions.
In Alerta before version 8.1.0, users may be able to bypass LDAP authentication if they provide an empty password when Alerta server is configure to use LDAP as the authorization provider.
Affected: Alerta (Alerta Project) versions >= < 8.1.0; alerta-server (pypi) versions >= 8.0.0. The full list is in the CVE brief.
It is not listed in any known-exploited vulnerabilities catalog.
No, it is not currently listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
No public exploit code is known.
Fixed versions are available, including Alerta 7.5.7, alerta-server 2bfa31779a4c9df2fa68fa4d0c5c909698c5ef65, alerta-server 7.5.7.
Brandefense priority: patch immediately, because it is very likely to be exploited soon.
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