Hard-Coded Password in PlaciPy 1.0.0 Enables Mass Account Takeover

Executive Summary

CVE-2026-25753 is a critical vulnerability in the PlaciPy placement management system where a hard-coded, static default password is assigned to all newly created student accounts.

This password is embedded directly in the source code and is the same for every student account, allowing any attacker who knows this password to log in as any student.

The root cause is insecure authentication design that lacks per-user password randomization and does not enforce password resets on first login.

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Impact Analysis

This vulnerability allows mass account takeover, enabling attackers to access any student account without authorization.

• Unauthorized access to sensitive data such as assessment results, personal information, submissions, and answers.
• Attackers can modify submissions and access restricted student-only endpoints.
• The hard-coded password is logged in plaintext, increasing the risk of credential leakage through monitoring systems.

Overall, this leads to immediate and complete compromise of all student accounts, representing a single point of failure.

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Compliance Impact

This vulnerability violates secure authentication principles and may result in compliance violations with regulations such as FERPA and GDPR.

Because it allows unauthorized access to personal and sensitive student data, it undermines data protection requirements mandated by these standards.

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Detection Guidance

[{'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'This vulnerability can be detected by checking for the presence of the hard-coded static default password "Pyplaci#25Student" assigned to all newly created student accounts.'}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'Since the password is logged in plaintext during execution, you can search application logs or monitoring systems like CloudWatch or ELK for occurrences of this password.'}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'Commands to detect this might include searching logs for the password string, for example:'}, {'type': 'list_item', 'content': 'Using grep on log files: grep -r "Pyplaci#25Student" /path/to/logs/'}, {'type': 'list_item', 'content': 'Using AWS CLI to search CloudWatch logs: aws logs filter-log-events --log-group-name <log-group> --filter-pattern "Pyplaci#25Student"'}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'Additionally, reviewing the source code for the presence of the hard-coded password in the `createCognitoUser` function within `backend/src/services/StudentService.ts` (lines 63–64) can confirm the vulnerability.'}] [1]

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Mitigation Strategies

[{'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'Immediate mitigation steps include removing the hard-coded static default password from the source code.'}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': "Generate unique cryptographically secure temporary passwords for each new student account, for example using Node.js: crypto.randomBytes(24).toString('base64')."}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'Enforce password resets on first login to ensure that users change their temporary passwords.'}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'Avoid logging any credentials or passwords in plaintext to prevent leakage through logs.'}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'Enforce strong password policies via AWS Cognito or the authentication system in use.'}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'Securely deliver credentials through expiring email links rather than static passwords.'}, {'type': 'paragraph', 'content': 'Promptly rotate any credentials that may have been compromised due to this vulnerability.'}] [1]

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