Security Advisories (1)
CVE-2025-40932 (2005-11-15)

Apache::SessionX versions through 2.01 for Perl create insecure session id. Apache::SessionX generates session ids insecurely. The default session id generator in Apache::SessionX::Generate::MD5 returns a MD5 hash seeded with the built-in rand() function, the epoch time, and the PID. The PID will come from a small set of numbers, and the epoch time may be guessed, if it is not leaked from the HTTP Date header. The built-in rand function is unsuitable for cryptographic usage. Predicable session ids could allow an attacker to gain access to systems.

NAME

Apache::Session::Generate::MD5 - Use MD5 to create random object IDs

SYNOPSIS

use Apache::SessionX::Generate::MD5;

$id = Apache::SessionX::Generate::MD5::generate($string);

DESCRIPTION

This module fulfills the ID generation interface of Apache::SessionX. If you don't give the argument $string, the IDs are generated using a two-round MD5 of a random number, the time since the epoch, the process ID, and the address of an anonymous hash. The resultant ID number is highly entropic on Linux and other platforms that have good random number generators. You are encouraged to investigate the quality of your system's random number generator if you are using the generated ID numbers in a secure environment. If you give $string the ID is the MD5 hash of that string.

This module can also examine session IDs to ensure that they are, indeed, session ID numbers and not evil attacks. The reader is encouraged to consider the effect of bogus session ID numbers in a system which uses these ID numbers to access disks and databases.

This modules takes one argument in the usual Apache::Session style. The argument is IDLength, and the value, between 0 and 32, tells this module where to truncate the session ID. Without this argument, the session ID will be 32 hexadecimal characters long, equivalent to a 128-bit key.

AUTHOR

This module was written by Jeffrey William Baker <jwbaker@acm.org> and modified by Gerald Richter <richter@dev.ecos.de>.

SEE ALSO

Apache::Session