CVE-2025-51536 in OpenAtlas
Summary
by MITRE • 08/04/2025
Austrian Archaeological Institute (AI) OpenAtlas v8.11.0 as discovered to contain a hardcoded Administrator password.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/06/2025
The Austrian Archaeological Institute OpenAtlas v8.11.0 presents a critical security vulnerability through the inclusion of a hardcoded administrator password within its codebase. This flaw represents a fundamental failure in secure software development practices and exposes the system to immediate unauthorized access risks. The vulnerability allows any attacker who discovers the hardcoded credentials to gain full administrative privileges without requiring any authentication process or knowledge of legitimate user credentials. Such a design flaw directly violates established security principles and creates an inherent backdoor that persists throughout the application lifecycle.
This vulnerability manifests as a classic security misconfiguration issue where sensitive authentication credentials are embedded within the application source code rather than being dynamically generated or stored securely. The presence of hardcoded passwords violates multiple security standards including cwe-798, which specifically addresses the use of hardcoded credentials in software systems. From an operational perspective, this vulnerability enables attackers to bypass all authentication mechanisms and gain unrestricted access to the system's administrative functions. The impact extends beyond simple unauthorized access to include potential data exfiltration, system compromise, and complete control over the OpenAtlas platform's functionality.
The operational implications of this vulnerability are severe and immediate, as it provides attackers with unrestricted administrative access to the archaeological data management system. This could result in data manipulation, unauthorized access to sensitive archaeological information, system corruption, or complete service disruption. The vulnerability affects the entire user base of OpenAtlas v8.11.0 installations and represents a significant risk to the integrity and confidentiality of archaeological research data. From an attack perspective, this vulnerability aligns with techniques described in the attack pattern taxonomy under the category of credential compromise and privilege escalation, making it particularly dangerous for organizations relying on the system for critical research data management.
Organizations using OpenAtlas v8.11.0 should immediately implement mitigations including updating to a patched version of the software, conducting comprehensive security assessments of their installations, and monitoring for unauthorized access attempts. The recommended approach involves removing the hardcoded credentials from the codebase and implementing proper password management practices including dynamic credential generation, secure credential storage mechanisms, and regular credential rotation procedures. Security teams should also perform thorough code reviews to identify similar hardcoded credentials or other security misconfigurations within the system. This vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of following secure coding practices and adhering to industry standards such as those outlined in the owasp top ten and nist cybersecurity framework to prevent such fundamental security flaws from being introduced into production systems.