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CVE-2025-42615VulnerabilityPublished

CVE-2025-42615: CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup · Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts

Affects CIRCL Vulnerability-LookupSource CVE Database V5

0

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.1 High.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score
8.1High
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.
EPSS
0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 35% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:H/UI:A/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:H/SI:N/SA:N

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 8 Dec 2025

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponised: no evidence on record.

    No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB

  4. Exploited in the wild: no evidence on record.

    Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation

  5. Observed by OffSeq Mirage: no evidence on record.

    No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-25.

What to do

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
CIRCL Vulnerability-LookupAffected
  • =0
Fixed in–

AI-suggested

European organizations should immediately upgrade CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup to version 2.18.0 or later, which includes the patch enforcing OTP attempt limits and account lockouts. Until patching is possible, organizations should implement compensating controls such as monitoring authentication logs for repeated failed OTP attempts and setting up alerts for suspicious 2FA activity. Enforce strong OTP policies with high entropy tokens and discourage OTP reuse. Consider integrating additional anomaly detection systems to identify brute-force patterns. Limit access to the Vulnerability-Lookup system to trusted networks and use network-level protections such as IP whitelisting or VPNs. Conduct regular audits of user accounts and 2FA configurations to ensure compliance with security policies. Educate administrators on the importance of monitoring failed 2FA attempts and responding promptly to suspicious activity. Finally, review and enhance incident response plans to address potential account takeover scenarios involving this vulnerability.

Description

In affected versions, vulnerability-lookup did not track or limit failed One-Time Password (OTP) attempts during Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) verification. An attacker who already knew or guessed a valid username and password could submit an arbitrary number of OTP codes without causing the account to be locked or generating any specific alert for administrators. This lack of rate-limiting and lockout on OTP failures significantly lowers the cost of online brute-force attacks against 2FA codes and increases the risk of successful account takeover, especially if OTP entropy is reduced (e.g.short numeric codes, user reuse, or predictable tokens). Additionally, administrators had no direct visibility into accounts experiencing repeated 2FA failures, making targeted attacks harder to detect and investigate. The patch introduces a persistent failed_otp_attempts counter on user accounts, locks the user after 5 invalid OTP submissions, resets the counter on successful verification, and surfaces failed 2FA attempts in the admin user list. This enforces an account lockout policy for OTP brute-force attempts and improves monitoring capabilities for suspicious 2FA activity.This issue affects Vulnerability-Lookup: before 2.18.0.

References

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