5.3

CVSS Score

3.1

-

CVSS Score

Basic Information

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CVE-2025-22234

CVE-2025-22234: Spring Security has a broken timing attack mitigation implemented in DaoAuthenticationProvide

The fix applied in CVE-2025-22228 inadvertently broke the timing attack mitigation implemented in DaoAuthenticationProvider. This can allow attackers to infer valid usernames or other authentication behavior via response-time differences under certain configurations.

(GitHub Advisory)

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CVE-2025-22234

CVE-2025-22234:

5.3

CVSS Score

3.1

-

CVSS Score

Basic Information

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Technical Details

Package Name	Ecosystem	Vulnerable Versions	First Patched Version
org.springframework.security:spring-security-core	maven	= 6.3.8	6.3.9
org.springframework.security:spring-security-core	maven	= 6.4.4	6.4.5

Technical Details

Vulnerability Intelligence
Miggo AI

Root Cause Analysis

The vulnerability, CVE-2025-22234, is a timing attack in Spring Security's DaoAuthenticationProvider. It was inadvertently introduced by the fix for a previous CVE. The root cause lies in the BCrypt.hashpw method, which is used by BCryptPasswordEncoder. In the vulnerable state, this method enforced a maximum password length of 72 bytes for both encoding new passwords and, crucially, for verifying existing passwords.

When an attacker attempted to authenticate with a password longer than 72 bytes, the hashpw method would immediately throw an IllegalArgumentException. This is significantly faster than performing the computationally expensive BCrypt hashing algorithm. This timing discrepancy created a side-channel: a quick response indicated an invalid username or a long password attempt, while a slow response indicated that a valid username was found and a full hash comparison was being performed.

The patch, identified in commit c1aa99fdd2113a232986e9c3a44673ae752de840, rectifies this by making the length check conditional. The check is now skipped during password verification (for_check is true), ensuring that the execution time is consistent regardless of the provided password's length, thus closing the timing leak. The vulnerable functions identified are the private method BCrypt.hashpw where the flaw resided, the public BCryptPasswordEncoder.matches method that exposes it, and the AbstractUserDetailsAuthenticationProvider.additionalAuthenticationChecks method which uses the password encoder as part of the authentication flow.

Vulnerable functions

org.springframework.security.crypto.bcrypt.BCrypt.hashpw

crypto/src/main/java/org/springframework/security/crypto/bcrypt/BCrypt.java

This private static method contained the logic that caused the timing leak. In the vulnerable version, it checked the password length and threw an exception if it exceeded 72 bytes, both for encoding new passwords and for checking existing ones. This immediate exception for long passwords during a check created a significant timing difference compared to the full BCrypt calculation for shorter passwords, allowing an attacker to infer information based on response time.

org.springframework.security.crypto.bcrypt.BCryptPasswordEncoder.matches

crypto/src/main/java/org/springframework/security/crypto/bcrypt/BCryptPasswordEncoder.java

This is the public method on the password encoder that is called by the authentication provider to verify a password. It serves as the entry point to the vulnerable code path by calling the private `BCrypt.hashpw` method. During exploitation, this function would appear in the stack trace just before the root cause.

org.springframework.security.authentication.dao.AbstractUserDetailsAuthenticationProvider.additionalAuthenticationChecks

core/src/main/java/org/springframework/security/authentication/dao/AbstractUserDetailsAuthenticationProvider.java

This method is responsible for orchestrating the password verification step during authentication. It calls `passwordEncoder.matches()`, which triggers the vulnerable timing leak. As the highest-level function within the authentication provider that initiates the vulnerable operation, it is a key indicator that would appear in a runtime profile during an exploit attempt.

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WAF Rule

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Reasoning

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