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GHSA-95c6-p277-p87g

FastAPI Api Key has a timing side-channel in verify_key that allows statistical key validity detection

Source: GitHub Advisory Database (reviewed) Low CVE-2026-23996

Packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixed in
PyPI fastapi-api-key < 1.1.0 1.1.0

Details

As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).

### Impact Timing side-channel vulnerability in verify_key(). The method applied a random delay only on verification failures, allowing an attacker to statistically distinguish valid from invalid API keys by measuring response latencies. With enough repeated requests, an adversary could infer whether a key_id corresponds to a valid key, potentially accelerating brute-force or enumeration attacks. Affected: all users relying on verify_key() for API key authentication prior to the fix. ### Patches Yes. Users should upgrade to version 1.1.0 (or the version containing this fix). The patch applies a uniform random delay (min_delay to max_delay) to all responses regardless of outcome, eliminating the timing correlation. ### Workarounds - Add an application-level fixed delay or random jitter to all authentication responses (success and failure) before the fix is applied. - Use rate limiting to reduce the feasibility of statistical timing attacks. ### References - CWE-208: Observable Timing Discrepancy - Commit: 87b27640f77c5ef86c46311b6b5a7e2887e35b77 - OWASP: https://owasp.org/www-community/attacks/Timing_attack

References

External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.