[NotCVE-2026-0012] EmpManageX Hardcoded Administrative Credentials in Login API Allow Full Access to Employee Records

[advisories () notcve org]

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NotCVE Advisory — NotCVE-2026-0012
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[-] Summary:
kamalpanse18 EmpManageX, a Flask-based employee management application,
ships hard-coded administrative credentials in its authentication logic.
The username admin and the plaintext password admin123 are module-level
constants in app.py, compared directly against the values submitted to the
/api/login handler. An attacker who can reach the listener authenticates as
the sole administrator and obtains full read and write control of every
employee record. The credentials are not a guessable secret: the project's
own README.md and QUICK_START.md state them openly. As shipped the server
binds to 127.0.0.1 only, so the default exposure is local; a deployer who
binds an external interface makes the same defect remotely reachable.
CVSS:3.1 7.7 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N).

[-] Affected:
kamalpanse18 EmpManageX, all versions (app.py).
The repository has a single commit, f4de83b, dated 2025-12-31, and no
tagged releases. No fixed version is currently verified.

[-] Technical Description:
ADMIN_USERNAME and ADMIN_PASSWORD are assigned at lines 17-18 of app.py and
compared directly against the submitted values in the /api/login handler.
The credential pair is a source-level constant with no configuration
mechanism behind it: app.py contains no use of os.environ or os.getenv, no
configuration file, no first-run setup step and no password-change
endpoint. The only supported way to alter the administrator password is to
edit the source and restart the process, and that change is lost whenever
the deployment is refreshed from the upstream repository. The same value is
therefore present in every unmodified deployment, and because README.md and
QUICK_START.md state it openly it is a published constant rather than a
guessable secret.

A successful call to /api/login sets session['logged_in'], which is the
only condition tested by the login_required decorator. No further
authorisation check is performed, so the caller obtains the entire
protected surface: POST /api/employee (create), GET /api/employees and
GET /api/employee/<int:emp_id> (read all stored employee data),
PUT /api/employee/<int:emp_id> (modify) and
DELETE /api/employee/<int:emp_id> (delete). On a match the handler sets
session['user_id'], session['username'] and session['logged_in'] and
returns a signed session cookie marked permanent with a 24-hour lifetime,
which the caller can replay against the protected endpoints.

The entry point is app.run(debug=True, port=5000), which passes no host
argument and therefore binds the Werkzeug development server to 127.0.0.1
only; README.md, SETUP_GUIDE.md and QUICK_START.md all direct the user to
http://127.0.0.1:5000. In the configuration as shipped the endpoint is
reachable only from the local host, which is what the CVSS vector above
reflects. A deployer who binds 0.0.0.0 or places the application behind a
reverse proxy makes the same defect remotely reachable.

SETUP_GUIDE.md carries a "Security Recommendations for Production" section
suggesting that the credentials be read from environment variables, but
that guidance is not implemented in the shipped app.py, and the example it
gives retains admin/admin123 as the fallback default.

The step-by-step attack path and the full write-up are published at the
advisory URL below.

Weaknesses:
CWE-798: Use of Hard-coded Credentials
CWE-1392: Use of Default Credentials
CWE-256: Plaintext Storage of a Password
CAPEC-70: Try Common or Default Usernames and Passwords

[-] Timeline:
[29/07/2026] - Report received and NotCVE ID reserved.
[20/08/2026] - Published as NotCVE-2026-0012.

[-] Credit:
Discovered by netspacer1124.

[-] Full Details and Updates:
https://notcve.org/notcve/NotCVE-2026-0012

[-] References:
https://github.com/kamalpanse18/EmpManageX
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kamalpanse18/EmpManageX/main/app.py
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kamalpanse18/EmpManageX/main/README.md
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kamalpanse18/EmpManageX/main/QUICK_START.md
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kamalpanse18/EmpManageX/main/SETUP_GUIDE.md
https://github.com/kamalpanse18/EmpManageX/commits/main/app.py

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