CVE-2026-101041

Vulnerability-Lookup - Race Condition in Account Recovery Token Consumption Allows Password Takeover

Published Sep 27, 2026 CVSS 4.0 · 6.3 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
The account recovery (password reset) functionality in the vulnerability-lookup web application contains a time-of-check-to-time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition in the consumption of single-use recovery tokens. The original implementation verified the token nonce against the stored digest and then consumed (cleared) it in separate database operations. Two concurrent HTTP requests presenting the same valid recovery token could both pass the verification check before either transaction committed, allowing both to set their own password on the target account. The last transaction to commit overwrites the first, enabling an attacker who possesses a valid recovery token to replace the legitimate user's password with one of their choosing.

A secondary defect in the same endpoint (confirm_account) allowed a valid recovery link to be used to set an empty or trivially short password (e.g., three characters). The view handler performed only a manual equality comparison between the two password fields and never invoked the form's validation logic, bypassing the intended minimum-length and complexity constraints.

The affected component is the user account recovery endpoint (/user/confirm_account/<token>) and the associated token verification and consumption logic in the User model (website/models/user.py) and the view layer (website/web/views/user.py).

Remediation

Vendor Solution

The non-atomic check-then-consume pattern is replaced with a single conditional UPDATE statement (compare-and-set) that atomically verifies the stored SHA-256 nonce digest, updates the password hash, sets is_confirmed, and clears the token in one database operation. Only the first transaction to commit succeeds; all concurrent attempts match zero rows and are rejected with an error. The view now calls form.validate() before processing the password change, enforcing the form's length and equality validators. The dead consume_account_token() method is removed to eliminate the non-atomic consumption path entirely.

Tracking

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Advisories

No advisories available
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Circl
Circl vulnerability-lookup
Vendors & Products Circl
Circl vulnerability-lookup
Type Values Removed Values Added
Description The account recovery (password reset) functionality in the vulnerability-lookup web application contains a time-of-check-to-time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition in the consumption of single-use recovery tokens. The original implementation verified the token nonce against the stored digest and then consumed (cleared) it in separate database operations. Two concurrent HTTP requests presenting the same valid recovery token could both pass the verification check before either transaction committed, allowing both to set their own password on the target account. The last transaction to commit overwrites the first, enabling an attacker who possesses a valid recovery token to replace the legitimate user's password with one of their choosing. A secondary defect in the same endpoint (confirm_account) allowed a valid recovery link to be used to set an empty or trivially short password (e.g., three characters). The view handler performed only a manual equality comparison between the two password fields and never invoked the form's validation logic, bypassing the intended minimum-length and complexity constraints. The affected component is the user account recovery endpoint (/user/confirm_account/<token>) and the associated token verification and consumption logic in the User model (website/models/user.py) and the view layer (website/web/views/user.py).
Title Vulnerability-Lookup - Race Condition in Account Recovery Token Consumption Allows Password Takeover
Weaknesses CWE-20
CWE-362
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 6.3, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:N/SA:N'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
CIRCL
Published
Updated
Sep 29, 2026, 3:28 PM
Reserved
Sep 27, 2026, 2:47 PM
Status
Deferred
Published
Sep 27, 2026, 3:16 PM
Modified
Sep 29, 2026, 4:17 PM