Overview
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system has recently identified a critical security vulnerability, CVE-2025-40920, affecting Catalyst::Authentication::Credential::HTTP versions 1.018 and earlier. This vulnerability pertains to the Perl Data::UUID library, which is used to generate nonces. The crux of this security issue lies in the library’s non-secure cryptographic source for generating UUIDs. This exposes systems to potential attacks, leading to compromised systems and possible data leakage, thus posing a significant threat to data integrity and privacy.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-40920
Severity: Critical, CVSS score 8.6
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Potential system compromise or data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Catalyst::Authentication::Credential::HTTP for Perl | 1.018 and earlier
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability arises from the Data::UUID library’s weak cryptographic source for generating UUIDs. Specifically, the library generates v3 UUIDs, which are derived from known information and thus unsuitable for security applications, as per RFC 9562. Since the nonces should ideally be generated from a strong cryptographic source, according to RFC 7616, the current implementation leaves systems vulnerable to attacks. An attacker could potentially exploit this weakness to predict the nonce value, thereby gaining unauthorized access or facilitating other forms of attacks.
Conceptual Example Code
Below is a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. The attacker sends a malicious request to an endpoint vulnerable to this exploit. The request could be designed to guess or brute force the nonce value, thereby gaining unauthorized access.
POST /vulnerable/endpoint HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/json
{ "nonce": "predicted_nonce_value", "malicious_payload": "..." }Mitigation Measures
To mitigate this vulnerability, users are advised to apply the vendor patch as soon as it is available. Alternatively, using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) could serve as temporary mitigation measures. However, these are not long-term solutions and can only provide a certain level of protection. The ultimate solution lies in updating the software to a version where the vulnerability has been patched. It is always a good practice to keep all systems and software up-to-date to prevent exploitation of known vulnerabilities.