CVE-2026-40458: PAC4J is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF).

PAC4J is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF).

PAC4J is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF). A malicious attacker can craft a specially designed website which, when visited by a user, will automatically submit a forged cross-site request with a token whose hash collides with the victim's legitimate CSRF token. Importantly, the attacker does not need to know the victim’s CSRF token or its hash prior to the attack. Collisions in the deterministic String.hashCode() function can be computed directly, reducing the effective token's security space to 32 bits. This bypasses CSRF protection, allowing profile updates, password changes, account linking, and any other state-changing operations to be performed without the victim's consent. This issue was fixed in PAC4J versions 5.7.10 and 6.4.1

Description from the National Vulnerability Database, published by cvd@cert.pl

What it means for a small business

If your business uses PAC4J, install the vendor's update. If you're not sure whether you use it, ask whoever manages your computers.

How likely is an attack? The Exploit Prediction Scoring System, run by FIRST (the global association of security response teams), puts the odds of this one being exploited in the next 30 days at 0.17%, higher than 5% of CVEs. That’s low, but low isn’t zero, and the odds jump the day someone publishes an exploit. Scored October 29, 2026, updated daily.

Check your own setup

Website check: reads what your site runs from the outside (WordPress version, plugins it can see, old server software) and matches it against this database.
Server check: what your web server says about itself, and whether that version has known flaws.

Sources

Part of the Huttenlocher Technologies vulnerability database, refreshed twice a day from CISA and the NVD. The title, category and plain-language guidance are ours; check the linked record before acting on a detail. This is general guidance, not a review of your systems.

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