CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2025-40919 — Authen::DigestMD5 versions 0.01 through 0.02 for Perl generate the cnonce insecurely

Medium CVSS 6.5

Authen::DigestMD5 versions 0.01 through 0.02 for Perl generate the cnonce insecurely. The cnonce (client nonce) is generated from an MD5 hash of the PID, the epoch time and the built-in rand function. The PID will come from a small set of numbers, and the epoch time may be guessed, if it is not leaked from the HTTP Date header. The built-in rand function is unsuitable for cryptographic usage. According to RFC 2831, "The cnonce-value is an opaque quoted string value provided by the client and used by both client and server to avoid chosen plaintext attacks, and to provide mutual authentication. The security of the implementation depends on a good choice. It is RECOMMENDED that it contain at least 64 bits of entropy."

Severity
Medium
CVSS
6.5 (3.1)
Published
2025-07-16
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-338, CWE-340

Affected products

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Matched remediation archetype

Cryptography, certificate, signature, and channel validation

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Inventory affected algorithms, key uses, trust stores, certificate validation settings, random sources, and plaintext channels across clients and services.
  • Determine which secrets, identities, signatures, or data protections depend on the affected primitive or validation path.
  • Check debug, compatibility, fallback, and hostname or audience override settings in build and runtime configuration.

Remediate safely

  • Use a maintained platform cryptographic API with approved algorithms, modes, parameters, randomness, and full peer identity validation.
  • Remove insecure fallback and validation bypasses; separate keys by purpose and load them from managed secret storage.
  • Plan rotation or reissuance for affected keys, certificates, tokens, hashes, or ciphertext and document compatibility sequencing.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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