An issue was discovered in phpLiteAdmin 1.9.5 through 1.9.7.1. Due to loose comparison with '==' instead of '===' in classes/Authorization.php for the user-provided login password, it is possible to login with a simpler password if the password has the form of a power in scientific notation (like '2e2' for '200' or '0e1234' for '0'). This is possible because, in the loose comparison case, PHP interprets the string as a number in scientific notation, and thus converts it to a number. After that, the comparison with '==' casts the user input (e.g., the string '200' or '0') to a number, too. Hence the attacker can login with just a '0' or a simple number he has to brute force. Strong comparison with '===' prevents the cast into numbers.

References

• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-10362
• phpLiteAdmin/pla#11
• http://k3research.outerhaven.de/posts/small-mistakes-lead-to-big-problems.html