A timing side channel exists in Memcached’s SASL password database authentication, where the use of memcmp in sasl_server_userdb_checkpass exposes measurable differences in response times that an attacker can exploit to infer password information. This flaw can enable an attacker to bypass authentication on vulnerable servers without direct credential access.

The vulnerability affects all Memcached installations running a version earlier than 1.6.42. The affected product is the Memcached server maintained by the Memcached project, as indicated by the referenced GitHub entries and release notes for 1.6.42.

With a CVSS score of 8.1, the weakness poses a high severity risk. The exploit probability is not quantified in the EPSS data and the flaw is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog. The attack likely requires the ability to send SASL authentication requests to the server and measure the resulting response times, which can be performed remotely if the Memcached service is exposed and SASL authentication is enabled. Successful exploitation would allow an adversary to deduce user passwords and gain unauthorized access.