Executive brief
MaxKB, an open-source AI assistant for enterprise environments, was found to store user passwords using an obsolete and insecure method. Because passwords were not properly protected with modern encryption techniques, an attacker who gains access to the database could easily recover the original passwords. This could lead to unauthorized access to corporate data and account takeovers across the organization.
Technical details
MaxKB prior to version 2.9.1 utilizes unsalted MD5 hashes for user password storage, specifically within the password_encrypt function in apps/common/utils/common.py. MD5 is a cryptographically broken hash function, and the lack of a unique salt allows for trivial recovery of plaintext passwords using rainbow tables or GPU-accelerated brute-force attacks (e.g., hashcat). An attacker with read access to the backend database can compromise all user accounts. The vulnerability was addressed in version 2.9.1 by implementing more secure hashing mechanisms.
Affected products
- 1Panel-dev MaxKB < 2.9.1
Timeline
- 2026-05-14: advisory: GitHub security advisory published
- 2026-05-26: disclosed: CVE-2026-45413 published to NVD