Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
A stolen or otherwise valid password may be enough to defeat two-factor protection in phpMyFAQ versions before 4.1.7. The attempt limit can be reset through renewed authentication sessions, allowing continued guessing of time-based one-time codes and potentially exposing the affected account and its data.
Executive priority
Treat this as an urgent identity-control failure. Promptly upgrade exposed or business-critical installations, then review authentication activity for abuse. Organizations relying on phpMyFAQ 2FA to protect administrative or sensitive access should not assume the second factor remains effective when an attacker has a valid password.
Technical view
The 2FA failure counter is tied to an individual session rather than the account. Successful password re-authentication creates a fresh session and resets the five-attempt counter, permitting repeated TOTP guessing. The issue is classified as CWE-307 and has a CVSS 4.0 score of 9.1.
Likely exposure
Exposure is highest for reachable phpMyFAQ installations running versions before 4.1.7 where TOTP protects privileged or sensitive accounts. Exploitation requires a valid account password. The supplied evidence does not establish whether default configurations, particular account roles, or other 2FA methods are affected.
Exploitation context
The attacker must already possess a valid password and overcome the TOTP factor through repeated guessing. The CVE is not listed as KEV in the supplied bundle, and none of the cited sources provided here reports active exploitation. Public exploit availability is not established.
Researcher notes
The security boundary fails because rate limiting is session-scoped instead of account-scoped. Assessment should examine whether limits persist across session replacement and password re-authentication without conducting uncontrolled guessing. The supplied sources identify versions before 4.1.7 as affected but do not provide evidence of active exploitation or broader product impact.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade affected phpMyFAQ installations to version 4.1.7 or later.
- Review the vendor advisory for any additional deployment-specific guidance.
- Prioritize privileged accounts and externally reachable installations.
- Investigate suspected password compromise and rotate affected credentials.
- Restrict administrative access until upgrades and validation are complete.
Validation and detection
- Inventory phpMyFAQ installations and record their exact versions.
- Identify accounts using TOTP, especially administrators and other privileged users.
- Confirm production instances run phpMyFAQ 4.1.7 or later.
- Review authentication logs for repeated password re-authentication and 2FA failures.
- In a controlled environment, confirm throttling persists across renewed sessions.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-307: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCredential and access behavior lookup
The CVE wording references authentication or credential exposure, so valid-account and credential-access review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2026-76213 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Critical
- CVSS
- 9.1 (4.0)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
SSVC decision data
CVSS vector scores
2 official scoresWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N——VulnCheckCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N2.25.2VulnCheckVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 4.0 score
9.1CriticalVector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Base CVSS 3.1 score
7.4HighVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Vulnerability timeline
Timeline events are normalized from CVE metadata, CNA source timelines, ADP timelines, and KEV metadata when present.
- CVE reservedCVE Program
The CVE ID was reserved by the assigning CNA.
- CVE publishedCVE Program
The CVE record was published.
- CVE updatedCVE Program
The CVE record metadata indicates this as the latest update time.
ADP provider summaries
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- GitHub Security Advisory (GHSA-f98m-hcjv-7rp9)CVE reference, VulnCheck · vendor-advisory
- VulnCheck Advisory: phpMyFAQ before 4.1.7 2FA Brute-Force via Session-Scoped ThrottleCVE reference, VulnCheck · third-party-advisory
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts
Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.