Information Exposure Through Timing Discrepancy in PostgreSQL - CVE-2026-6478
Published: May 14, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU131460
CSH Severity: Medium
CVSS v4.0: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Green
CVE-ID: CVE-2026-6478
CWE-ID: CWE-208
Exploitation vector: Remote access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vendor: PostgreSQL Global Development Group
Affected software:
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
Detailed vulnerability description
The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to recover credentials sufficient to authenticate.
The vulnerability exists due to observable timing discrepancies in MD5-hashed password comparison during authentication. A remote attacker can measure authentication timing to recover credentials sufficient to authenticate.
The issue does not affect scram-sha-256 passwords and applies to MD5-hashed passwords that may originate from upgrades from PostgreSQL 13 or earlier.
How to mitigate CVE-2026-6478
Install security update from vendor's website.