Security advisory
eLabFTW is an open source electronic lab notebook manager for research teams. In versions of eLabFTW before 4.1.0, it allows attackers to bypass a brute-force protection mechanism by using many different forged PHPSESSID values in HTTP Cookie header. This issue has been addressed by implementing brute force login protection, as recommended by Owasp with Device Cookies. This mechanism will not impact users and will effectively thwart any brute-force attempts at guessing passwords. The only correct way to address this is to upgrade to version 4.1.0. Adding rate limitation upstream of the eLabFTW service is of course a valid option, with or without upgrading.
- Products
- Not specified
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- Not specified
- CVEs
- CVE-2021-41171
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 31 Oct 2026, 11:56 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
eLabFTW is an open source electronic lab notebook manager for research teams. In versions of eLabFTW before 4.1.0, it allows attackers to bypass a brute-force protection mechanism by using many different forged PHPSESSID values in HTTP Cookie header. This issue has been addressed by implementing brute force login protection, as recommended by Owasp with Device Cookies. This mechanism will not impact users and will effectively thwart any brute-force attempts at guessing passwords. The only correct way to address this is to upgrade to version 4.1.0. Adding rate limitation upstream of the eLabFTW service is of course a valid option, with or without upgrading.
osv:CVE-2021-41171
Complete source record
{
"id": "ec1f66886ce55695d79c57a5662954ae9ecf8f46bfcc21308029f4b25e5b0399",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-41171",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "CVE-2021-41171",
"summary": "eLabFTW is an open source electronic lab notebook manager for research teams. In versions of eLabFTW before 4.1.0, it allows attackers to bypass a brute-force protection mechanism by using many different forged PHPSESSID values in HTTP Cookie header. This issue has been addressed by implementing brute force login protection, as recommended by Owasp with Device Cookies. This mechanism will not impact users and will effectively thwart any brute-force attempts at guessing passwords. The only correct way to address this is to upgrade to version 4.1.0. Adding rate limitation upstream of the eLabFTW service is of course a valid option, with or without upgrading.",
"evidence": "osv:CVE-2021-41171",
"products": [],
"severity": "high",
"structured": {
"id": "CVE-2021-41171",
"aliases": [
"CVE-2021-41171",
"GHSA-q67h-5pc3-g6jv"
],
"metrics": [
{
"type": "CVSS_V3",
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H"
}
],
"affected": [
{
"ranges": [
{
"repo": "https://github.com/elabftw/elabftw",
"type": "GIT",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "d479eb32b84e6e813a4143e95d860f955fa243aa"
},
{
"fixed": "8e92afeec4c3a68dc88333881b7e6307f425706b"
}
],
"database_specific": {
"extracted_events": [
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:elabftw:elabftw:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"range": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "4.1.0"
}
],
"source": "CPE_RANGE"
},
{
"range": [
{
"fixed": "8e92afeec4c3a68dc88333881b7e6307f425706b"
}
],
"source": "REFERENCES_COMMIT"
},
{
"range": [
{
"fixed": "d479eb32b84e6e813a4143e95d860f955fa243aa"
}
],
"source": "REFERENCES_TAG",
"original_tag": "4.1.0"
}
]
}
}
],
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],
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2021-41171.json"
}
}
],
"modified": "2026-10-20T10:54:57.718148059Z",
"provider": "osv",
"references": [
"https://github.com/elabftw/elabftw/releases/tag/4.1.0",
"https://github.com/elabftw/elabftw/security/advisories/GHSA-q67h-5pc3-g6jv",
"https://owasp.org/www-community/Slow_Down_Online_Guessing_Attacks_with_Device_Cookies",
"https://github.com/elabftw/elabftw/commit/8e92afeec4c3a68dc88333881b7e6307f425706b",
"https://www.exploit-db.com/docs/50436"
],
"provider_metadata": {}
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2021-41171",
"evidence": "/id"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 386558,
"published_at": "2021-10-22T19:15:07.923+00:00"
}