phpseclib is a PHP secure communications library. Prior to 3.0.51, 2.0.53, and 1.0.28, phpseclib\Net\SSH2::get_binary_packet() uses PHP's != operator to compare a received SSH packet HMAC against the locally computed HMAC. != on equal-length binary strings in PHP uses memcmp(), which short-circuits on the first differing byte. This is a real variable-time comparison (CWE-208), proven by scaling benchmarks. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.0.51, 2.0.53, and 1.0.28.

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Advisories
Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-r854-jrxh-36qx phpseclib has a variable-time HMAC comparison in SSH2::get_binary_packet() using != instead of hash_equals()
Fixes

Solution

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Workaround

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History

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 20:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description phpseclib is a PHP secure communications library. Prior to 3.0.51, 2.0.53, and 1.0.28, phpseclib\Net\SSH2::get_binary_packet() uses PHP's != operator to compare a received SSH packet HMAC against the locally computed HMAC. != on equal-length binary strings in PHP uses memcmp(), which short-circuits on the first differing byte. This is a real variable-time comparison (CWE-208), proven by scaling benchmarks. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.0.51, 2.0.53, and 1.0.28.
Title phpseclib has a variable-time HMAC comparison in SSH2::get_binary_packet() using != instead of hash_equals()
Weaknesses CWE-208
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 3.7, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N'}


Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-04-10T20:24:06.696Z

Reserved: 2026-04-09T20:59:17.620Z

Link: CVE-2026-40194

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-04-10T21:16:27.583

Modified: 2026-04-10T21:16:27.583

Link: CVE-2026-40194

cve-icon Redhat

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cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

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Weaknesses