CVE-2019-11272: PlaintextPasswordEncoder authenticates encoded passwords that are null

Severity: high (CVSS 7.3 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 1.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2019-06-26 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-287

Description

Spring Security, versions 4.2.x up to 4.2.12, and older unsupported versions support plain text passwords using PlaintextPasswordEncoder. If an application using an affected version of Spring Security is leveraging PlaintextPasswordEncoder and a user has a null encoded password, a malicious user (or attacker) can authenticate using a password of "null".

Affected products

Debian Linux: 8.0
Spring Security: before 4.2.13 — fixed in 4.2.13
Spring Security: from 4.2 before 4.2.13.RELEASE — fixed in 4.2.13.RELEASE

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Spring Security 4.2.13; Spring Security 4.2.13.RELEASE. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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