CVE-2019-11272 PlaintextPasswordEncoder authenticates encoded passwords that are null

What is CVE-2019-11272?

CVE-2019-11272 is a high-severity authentication bypass vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 26 Jun 2019. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Spring Security, versions 4.2.x up to 4.2.12, and older unsupported versions support plain text passwords using PlaintextPasswordEncoder. If an application using an affected version of Spring Security is leveraging PlaintextPasswordEncoder and a user has a null encoded password, a malicious user (or attacker) can authenticate using a password of "null".

Weakness: CWE-522, CWE-287

Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-11272?

4 open source packages ship an affected version, including org.springframework.security:spring-security-cas and org.springframework.security:spring-security-core. It affects 2 products.

Products include Debian Debian Linux, Vmware Spring Security.

How do I fix CVE-2019-11272?

Upgrade org.springframework.security:spring-security-cas to 4.2.13.RELEASE or later.

Upgrade, and rotate credentials and sessions that may have been exposed. More about Authentication bypass.

Is CVE-2019-11272 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-11272 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux

• CVE-2015-3306 ProFTPD Improper Access Control Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2025-49113 RoundCube Webmail Deserialization of Untrusted Data Exploited Critical 9.9
• CVE-2026-24061 GNU InetUtils Argument Injection Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2025-39682 Linux Kernel Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2024-9680 Mozilla Firefox Use-After-Free Exploited Critical 9.8

All Debian Debian Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DLA-1848-1, GHSA-v33x-prhc-gph5.