The parisneo/lollms repository is affected by a timing attack vulnerability in the `authenticate_user` function within the `lollms_authentication.py` file. This vulnerability allows attackers to enumerate valid usernames and guess passwords incrementally by analyzing response time differences. The affected version is the latest, and the issue is resolved in version 20.1. The vulnerability arises from the use of Python's default string equality operator for password comparison, which compares characters sequentially and exits on the first mismatch, leading to variable response times based on the number of matching initial characters.
The product behaves differently or sends different responses under different circumstances in a way that is observable to an unauthorized actor, which exposes security-relevant information about the state of the product, such as whether a particular operation was successful or not.