VulnerabilityModified

CVE-2020-5229

Opencast before 8.1 stores passwords using the rather outdated and cryptographically insecure MD5 hash algorithm.

HIGH 8.1EPSS 0.63%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.63%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

Opencast before 8.1 stores passwords using the rather outdated and cryptographically insecure MD5 hash algorithm. Furthermore, the hashes are salted using the username instead of a random salt, causing hashes for users with the same username and password to collide which is problematic especially for popular users like the default `admin` user. This essentially means that for an attacker, it might be feasible to reconstruct a user's password given access to these hashes. Note that attackers needing access to the hashes means that they must gain access to the database in which these are stored first to be able to start cracking the passwords. The problem is addressed in Opencast 8.1 which now uses the modern and much stronger bcrypt password hashing algorithm for storing passwords. Note, that old hashes remain MD5 until the password is updated. For a list of users whose password hashes are stored using MD5, take a look at the `/user-utils/users/md5.json` REST endpoint.

CVSS 3.1: 8.1 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
EPSS: 0.63% probability · 50th percentile
Public exploits: None in Exploit-DB
CISA KEV: Not listed
Weakness: CWE-327
Affected: apereo/opencast
Source: security-advisories@github.com

EPSS trend

EPSS 0.6% since 26 October 2026; no change recorded yet. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.

References

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.