Summary
Tinyauth's local authentication mechanism is vulnerable to username enumeration through timing differences. Login attempts for existing users take significantly longer than attempts for nonexistent users, allowing an unauthenticated attacker to determine which usernames exist on the instance.
Who is impacted
Instances using Tinyauth's local user authentication, including password-based login and HTTP Basic Authentication. Attackers who can reach these authentication endpoints may enumerate valid local usernames without knowing their passwords.
Temporary mitigation
Until a fix is available, administrators should implement strict rate limiting on authentication endpoints through their reverse proxy and restrict access to trusted networks where possible. Rate limiting can reduce the effectiveness of enumeration attempts but does not eliminate the underlying timing difference.
Summary
Tinyauth's local authentication mechanism is vulnerable to username enumeration through timing differences. Login attempts for existing users take significantly longer than attempts for nonexistent users, allowing an unauthenticated attacker to determine which usernames exist on the instance.
Who is impacted
Instances using Tinyauth's local user authentication, including password-based login and HTTP Basic Authentication. Attackers who can reach these authentication endpoints may enumerate valid local usernames without knowing their passwords.
Temporary mitigation
Until a fix is available, administrators should implement strict rate limiting on authentication endpoints through their reverse proxy and restrict access to trusted networks where possible. Rate limiting can reduce the effectiveness of enumeration attempts but does not eliminate the underlying timing difference.