Executive brief
Ech0 is an open-source publishing platform for personal idea sharing. A security flaw in its password encryption function uses MD5, a cryptographically weak algorithm that makes encrypted credentials vulnerable to brute-force attacks. Remote exploitation is possible but requires significant effort, and upgrading to version 5.4.2 resolves the issue.
Technical details
The vulnerability stems from the use of MD5 for password hashing in the MD5Encrypt function within internal/util/crypto/crypto.go. MD5 is considered cryptographically broken and unsuitable for password hashing due to its susceptibility to collision attacks and rapid hash computation. The function is used for local authentication, and the vulnerability can be exploited remotely by attackers who obtain password hashes to perform dictionary or brute-force attacks. A patch (commit 9ce19a3b0d0765086a655f45d3a706ec1810404f) migrates password storage to bcrypt, a proper password hashing algorithm. Upgrading to version 5.4.2 or later is recommended.
Affected products
- lin-snow Ech0 up to 5.4.1
Timeline
- 2026-08-20: disclosed
- 2026-07-07: patched: Patch commit 9ce19a3b0d0765086a655f45d3a706ec1810404f migrates to bcrypt