CVE-2026-31904 in Chargeportal
Summary
by MITRE • 03/21/2026
The WebSocket Application Programming Interface lacks restrictions on the number of authentication requests. This absence of rate limiting may allow an attacker to conduct denial-of-service attacks by suppressing or mis-routing legitimate charger telemetry, or conduct brute-force attacks to gain unauthorized access.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/27/2026
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2026-31904 resides within the WebSocket Application Programming Interface implementation where insufficient controls exist to limit the volume of authentication requests that can be processed within a given time frame. This weakness creates a significant security gap that directly impacts the integrity and availability of connected systems, particularly those utilizing WebSocket protocols for real-time communication. The absence of rate limiting mechanisms allows malicious actors to exploit the interface without meaningful constraints on their request frequency, potentially leading to cascading failures within the network infrastructure.
This technical flaw fundamentally undermines the security posture of WebSocket implementations by creating an environment where authentication requests can be saturated without proper throttling or monitoring. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-307, which addresses inadequate protection against excessive authentication attempts, and represents a critical weakness in authentication security. The flaw enables attackers to exploit the protocol's design by flooding the system with authentication requests, effectively creating a denial-of-service condition that can disrupt legitimate user access while simultaneously providing opportunities for credential stuffing and brute-force attacks.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption to encompass potential data integrity compromises and system availability issues. Attackers can leverage this weakness to suppress or misroute legitimate charger telemetry data, which particularly affects IoT deployments in critical infrastructure sectors such as electric vehicle charging networks, industrial control systems, and smart grid implementations. The ability to overwhelm authentication mechanisms creates opportunities for attackers to gain unauthorized access to systems through credential brute-forcing, as the lack of rate limiting removes barriers that would normally protect against automated attack vectors. This scenario directly maps to ATT&CK technique T1110, which covers credential brute force and password guessing attacks.
Mitigation strategies must address both immediate protection and long-term architectural improvements to secure WebSocket implementations. Organizations should implement comprehensive rate limiting controls that monitor authentication request patterns and automatically throttle suspicious activity based on established thresholds. The solution architecture should incorporate adaptive rate limiting mechanisms that can distinguish between legitimate user behavior and automated attack patterns while maintaining system availability for genuine users. Additional protective measures include implementing authentication request monitoring, establishing connection limits per client, and deploying intrusion detection systems that can identify and respond to abnormal authentication request volumes. These controls should align with industry best practices for secure WebSocket implementation and address the fundamental lack of access control restrictions that characterizes this vulnerability.