Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-64526

Strapi ≤ 5.45.0

Published
14 May 2026
Modified
17 June 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v4 6.9
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0049 40th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-64526 is a medium-severity Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts (CWE-307) vulnerability in Strapi Strapi. Its CVSS base score is 6.9 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Brute Force (T1110); ranked at the 40th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-7 (Unsuccessful Logon Attempts) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Strapi is an open source headless content management system. In Strapi versions prior to 5.45.0, the rate-limit middleware in the users-permissions plugin derived its rate-limit key in part from `ctx.request.body.email`, including on routes whose body schema does not contain an…

more

`email` field (`/auth/local`, `/auth/reset-password`, `/auth/change-password`). An unauthenticated attacker could include an arbitrary `email` value in the request body to obtain a fresh rate-limit key per request, effectively bypassing per-IP throttling on those routes and enabling high-volume credential brute-force, password-reset code brute-force, and credential-stuffing attempts. The rate-limit key was constructed as `${userIdentifier}:${requestPath}:${ctx.request.ip}`, where `userIdentifier = ctx.request.body.email`. On routes that legitimately use email as their identifier (e.g. `/auth/forgot-password`, `/auth/local/register`), this scoping is correct. On routes that use a different identifier (`identifier` for login, `code` for password reset, `currentPassword` for password change), the email field was not part of the route contract, but the middleware still incorporated it into the key, allowing a caller to rotate the value and obtain a unique key on every request. The patch in version 5.45.0 maintains an allow-list of routes that legitimately key on the email field and excludes that key component on every other route the middleware is mounted on. OAuth callback paths (`/connect/*`) are treated identifier-less. On routes outside the allow-list, the middleware now falls back to a fixed identifier-less key, ensuring per-IP throttling remains effective even when the request body is attacker-controlled.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1110 Brute Force Credential Access
Adversaries may use brute force techniques to gain access to accounts when passwords are unknown or when password hashes are obtained.
T1110.001 Password Guessing Credential Access
Adversaries with no prior knowledge of legitimate credentials within the system or environment may guess passwords to attempt access to accounts.
T1110.004 Credential Stuffing Credential Access
Adversaries may use credentials obtained from breach dumps of unrelated accounts to gain access to target accounts through credential overlap.
Why these techniques?

The vulnerability allows unauthenticated attackers to bypass per-IP rate limiting on authentication routes by supplying arbitrary email values, directly enabling high-volume password guessing and credential stuffing attacks.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-56143Same product: Strapi Strapi
CVE-2023-37263Same product: Strapi Strapi
CVE-2023-34235Same product: Strapi Strapi
CVE-2023-22893Same product: Strapi Strapi
CVE-2026-22706Same product: Strapi Strapi
CVE-2026-57997Same product: Strapi Strapi
CVE-2024-34065Same product: Strapi Strapi
CVE-2026-27886Same product: Strapi Strapi
CVE-2024-52588Same product: Strapi Strapi
CVE-2024-37818Same product: Strapi Strapi

Affected Assets

strapi
strapi
≤ 5.45.0

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • AC-7 Unsuccessful Logon Attempts
  • SI-10 Information Input Validation
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 2 hardening rules · 1 OS baseline
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Directly requires limits on consecutive unsuccessful logon attempts, which the flawed per-email rate-limit key was intended to enforce on /auth/local and password routes.

prevent

Mandates validation of input data against expected schemas, preventing the middleware from consuming an arbitrary email field on routes whose contract does not include it.

prevent

Requires the system to enforce access-control decisions (including rate-limit decisions) based only on authorized attributes for each protected endpoint.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.AA-03 mostly match
prevents

Authentication enforcement directly includes lockout, throttling, and MFA policies that prevent brute-force attempts.

DE.CM-03 partial match
prevents

Behavioral monitoring of authentication activity can detect excessive failed attempts after they occur.

PR.PS-04 partial match
prevents

Generating auth logs enables later detection or forensics but does not itself restrict attempts.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

prevents

CAPTCHA, account lock-out after repeated failures, and alerts on excessive attempts directly stop automated brute-force guessing of credentials.

References