CVE-2026-102272

PyJWT is a Python implementation of JSON Web Token standards. From 2.13.0 until 2.14.0, HMACAlgorithm.prepare_key in jwt/algorithms.py is affected because raw-JWK detector does not normalize accepted Unicode byte-order marks before checking for JSON. This occurs when a public JWK is prefixed with a UTF-8 BOM and used in a mixed-algorithm verification path. As a result, public JWK bypasses asymmetric-key detection and becomes the HMAC secret. Consequently, an attacker who knows the public key can forge authenticated tokens. This issue is fixed in version 2.14.0.

Affected Package

• Package: PyJWT (pyjwt on PyPI)
• Repository: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://github.com/jpadilla/pyjwt&source=gmail&ust=1781794518474000&sa=E
• Affected version: 2.13.0
• Vulnerability class: Algorithm confusion / patch bypass

Root Cause

PyJWT 2.13.0 introduced a guard in HMACAlgorithm.prepare_key() (file jwt/algorithms.py, approximately line 344) to prevent RSA public key material from being used as an HMAC secret — the root cause of CVE-2026-48526.

The guard uses bytes.lstrip() before calling startswith(b"{"):

stripped = key_bytes.lstrip() # strips ASCII whitespace only
if stripped.startswith(b"{"): # JWK detection
 ...
 raise InvalidKeyError("The specified key is an asymmetric key...")

bytes.lstrip() with no argument removes only bytes in the ASCII whitespace set (\x20 \t \n \r \x0b \x0c). A UTF-8 BOM prefix (\xef\xbb\xbf) is not stripped, so stripped.startswith(b"{") returns False for any BOM-prefixed JWK JSON. The JWK detection block is never entered, and the RSA public key bytes are silently accepted as the HMAC-SHA256 secret.

PoC Sketch (pseudocode — not a weaponized payload)

# 1. Attacker obtains RSA public key JWK (e.g., from /jwks.json endpoint)
# and prepends a UTF-8 BOM byte sequence before the JSON opening brace.
# 2. Attacker signs a JWT using HS256, with the BOM-prefixed JWK as the secret.
# 3. Attacker submits the forged token to a verifier that:
# - accepts algorithms=["HS256", "RS256"]
# - holds the same RSA public key as raw bytes (BOM-prefixed key file)
# 4. PyJWT 2.13.0 accepts the token because the BOM causes the JWK
# detection check to be skipped — the RSA JWK bytes become a valid HMAC key.
# Result: arbitrary claims (role, sub, etc.) accepted by the verifier.

Impact

An unauthenticated network attacker who knows the target application's RSA public key — which is public by design and obtainable from a JWKS endpoint or certificate — can forge JWT tokens containing arbitrary claims and have them accepted by a PyJWT 2.13.0 verifier configured with a mixed algorithm set (algorithms=["HS256", "RS256"] or equivalent). The resulting impact is complete authentication and authorization bypass (C:H/I:H). Attack Complexity is High (AC:H) because the attacker must obtain the RSA public key and the verifier must use a mixed-algorithm configuration; no authentication is required (PR:N). This is a patch bypass: users who upgraded to 2.13.0 specifically to remediate CVE-2026-48526 remain vulnerable.

Suggested Fix

Option A (minimal): Replace lstrip() with an explicit strip of known BOM prefixes before the JSON detection check:

# Strip common BOM prefixes in addition to ASCII whitespace
BOM_PREFIXES = (b"\xef\xbb\xbf", b"\xff\xfe", b"\xfe\xff")
stripped = key_bytes
for bom in BOM_PREFIXES:
 if stripped.startswith(bom):
 stripped = stripped[len(bom):]
 break
stripped = stripped.lstrip()

Option B (more robust): Use json.loads() as the detection mechanism instead of a byte-prefix check, so encoding variants and whitespace are handled by the JSON parser:

try:
 test_obj = json.loads(key_bytes.strip())
 if isinstance(test_obj, dict) and "kty" in test_obj:
 raise InvalidKeyError("The specified key is an asymmetric key...")
except (ValueError, UnicodeDecodeError):
 pass

Option B is preferred because it is resilient to any future encoding variant.

Maintainer update — 2026-09-09

We reproduced the reported algorithm-confusion path on PyJWT 2.13.0. When an application passes a raw public RSA JWK as the key and allows both an asymmetric and HMAC algorithm, a forged HS256 token signed with the known public JWK bytes is accepted when the JWK is represented in encodings accepted by Python's JSON decoder. The normal raw-JWK, asymmetric-only, and algorithm-bound PyJWK controls reject the token. This is an application configuration…

Affected Package

• Package: PyJWT (pyjwt on PyPI)
• Repository: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://github.com/jpadilla/pyjwt&source=gmail&ust=1781794518474000&sa=E
• Affected version: 2.13.0
• Vulnerability class: Algorithm confusion / patch bypass

Root Cause

PyJWT 2.13.0 introduced a guard in HMACAlgorithm.prepare_key() (file jwt/algorithms.py, approximately line 344) to prevent RSA public key material from being used as an HMAC secret — the root cause of CVE-2026-48526.

The guard uses bytes.lstrip() before calling startswith(b"{"):

stripped = key_bytes.lstrip() # strips ASCII whitespace only
if stripped.startswith(b"{"): # JWK detection
 ...
 raise InvalidKeyError("The specified key is an asymmetric key...")

bytes.lstrip() with no argument removes only bytes in the ASCII whitespace set (\x20 \t \n \r \x0b \x0c). A UTF-8 BOM prefix (\xef\xbb\xbf) is not stripped, so stripped.startswith(b"{") returns False for any BOM-prefixed JWK JSON. The JWK detection block is never entered, and the RSA public key bytes are silently accepted as the HMAC-SHA256 secret.

PoC Sketch (pseudocode — not a weaponized payload)

# 1. Attacker obtains RSA public key JWK (e.g., from /jwks.json endpoint)
# and prepends a UTF-8 BOM byte sequence before the JSON opening brace.
# 2. Attacker signs a JWT using HS256, with the BOM-prefixed JWK as the secret.
# 3. Attacker submits the forged token to a verifier that:
# - accepts algorithms=["HS256", "RS256"]
# - holds the same RSA public key as raw bytes (BOM-prefixed key file)
# 4. PyJWT 2.13.0 accepts the token because the BOM causes the JWK
# detection check to be skipped — the RSA JWK bytes become a valid HMAC key.
# Result: arbitrary claims (role, sub, etc.) accepted by the verifier.

Impact

An unauthenticated network attacker who knows the target application's RSA public key — which is public by design and obtainable from a JWKS endpoint or certificate — can forge JWT tokens containing arbitrary claims and have them accepted by a PyJWT 2.13.0 verifier configured with a mixed algorithm set (algorithms=["HS256", "RS256"] or equivalent). The resulting impact is complete authentication and authorization bypass (C:H/I:H). Attack Complexity is High (AC:H) because the attacker must obtain the RSA public key and the verifier must use a mixed-algorithm configuration; no authentication is required (PR:N). This is a patch bypass: users who upgraded to 2.13.0 specifically to remediate CVE-2026-48526 remain vulnerable.

Suggested Fix

Option A (minimal): Replace lstrip() with an explicit strip of known BOM prefixes before the JSON detection check:

# Strip common BOM prefixes in addition to ASCII whitespace
BOM_PREFIXES = (b"\xef\xbb\xbf", b"\xff\xfe", b"\xfe\xff")
stripped = key_bytes
for bom in BOM_PREFIXES:
 if stripped.startswith(bom):
 stripped = stripped[len(bom):]
 break
stripped = stripped.lstrip()

Option B (more robust): Use json.loads() as the detection mechanism instead of a byte-prefix check, so encoding variants and whitespace are handled by the JSON parser:

try:
 test_obj = json.loads(key_bytes.strip())
 if isinstance(test_obj, dict) and "kty" in test_obj:
 raise InvalidKeyError("The specified key is an asymmetric key...")
except (ValueError, UnicodeDecodeError):
 pass

Option B is preferred because it is resilient to any future encoding variant.

Maintainer update — 2026-09-09

We reproduced the reported algorithm-confusion path on PyJWT 2.13.0. When an application passes a raw public RSA JWK as the key and allows both an asymmetric and HMAC algorithm, a forged HS256 token signed with the known public JWK bytes is accepted when the JWK is represented in encodings accepted by Python's JSON decoder. The normal raw-JWK, asymmetric-only, and algorithm-bound PyJWK controls reject the token. This is an application configuration…

The fence-agents packages provide a collection of scripts for handling remote power management for cluster devices. They allow failed or unreachable nodes to be forcibly restarted and removed from the cluster.

Security Fix(es):

• pyjwt: pyjwt: Authentication bypass via empty HMAC key acceptance (CVE-2026-102266)

• pyjwt: PyJWT: Authentication bypass via improper public key validation (CVE-2026-102268)

• pyjwt: PyJWT: Authentication bypass via acceptance of DER public keys as HMAC secrets (CVE-2026-102271)

• pyjwt: pyjwt: Verification key substitution via unvalidated JWKS redirects (CVE-2026-102267)

• pyjwt: pyjwt: Token forgery via improper Unicode byte-order mark handling (CVE-2026-102272)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

The fence-agents packages provide a collection of scripts for handling remote power management for cluster devices. They allow failed or unreachable nodes to be forcibly restarted and removed from the cluster.

Security Fix(es):

• pyjwt: pyjwt: Authentication bypass via empty HMAC key acceptance (CVE-2026-102266)

• pyjwt: PyJWT: Authentication bypass via improper public key validation (CVE-2026-102268)

• pyjwt: PyJWT: Authentication bypass via acceptance of DER public keys as HMAC secrets (CVE-2026-102271)

• pyjwt: pyjwt: Verification key substitution via unvalidated JWKS redirects (CVE-2026-102267)

• pyjwt: pyjwt: Token forgery via improper Unicode byte-order mark handling (CVE-2026-102272)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

PyJWT is a Python implementation of JSON Web Token standards. From 2.13.0 until 2.14.0, HMACAlgorithm.prepare_key in jwt/algorithms.py is affected because raw-JWK detector does not normalize accepted Unicode byte-order marks before checking for JSON. This occurs when a public JWK is prefixed with a UTF-8 BOM and used in a mixed-algorithm verification path. As a result, public JWK bypasses asymmetric-key detection and becomes the HMAC secret. Consequently, an attacker who knows the public key can forge authenticated tokens. This issue is fixed in version 2.14.0.

The fence-agents packages provide a collection of scripts for handling remote power management for cluster devices. They allow failed or unreachable nodes to be forcibly restarted and removed from the cluster.

Security Fix(es):

• pyjwt: pyjwt: Authentication bypass via empty HMAC key acceptance (CVE-2026-102266)
• pyjwt: PyJWT: Authentication bypass via improper public key validation (CVE-2026-102268)
• pyjwt: PyJWT: Authentication bypass via acceptance of DER public keys as HMAC secrets (CVE-2026-102271)
• pyjwt: pyjwt: Verification key substitution via unvalidated JWKS redirects (CVE-2026-102267)
• pyjwt: pyjwt: Token forgery via improper Unicode byte-order mark handling (CVE-2026-102272)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

The fence-agents packages provide a collection of scripts for handling remote power management for cluster devices. They allow failed or unreachable nodes to be forcibly restarted and removed from the cluster.

Security Fix(es):

• pyjwt: pyjwt: Authentication bypass via empty HMAC key acceptance (CVE-2026-102266)
• pyjwt: PyJWT: Authentication bypass via improper public key validation (CVE-2026-102268)
• pyjwt: PyJWT: Authentication bypass via acceptance of DER public keys as HMAC secrets (CVE-2026-102271)
• pyjwt: pyjwt: Verification key substitution via unvalidated JWKS redirects (CVE-2026-102267)
• pyjwt: pyjwt: Token forgery via improper Unicode byte-order mark handling (CVE-2026-102272)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

PyJWT is a Python implementation of JSON Web Token standards. From 2.13.0 until 2.14.0, HMACAlgorithm.prepare_key in jwt/algorithms.py is affected because raw-JWK detector does not normalize accepted Unicode byte-order marks before checking for JSON. This occurs when a public JWK is prefixed with a UTF-8 BOM and used in a mixed-algorithm verification path. As a result, public JWK bypasses asymmetric-key detection and becomes the HMAC secret. Consequently, an attacker who knows the public key can forge authenticated tokens. This issue is fixed in version 2.14.0.

TuxCare rebuilt pyjwt to address 3 CVEs. Fixed in 2.10.1.post8+tuxcare.

TuxCare rebuilt pyjwt to address 4 CVEs. Fixed in 2.8.0.post6+tuxcare.

TuxCare rebuilt pyjwt to address 3 CVEs. Fixed in 2.3.0.post6+tuxcare.

These are all security issues fixed in the python313-PyJWT-2.15.1-1.1 package on the GA media of openSUSE Tumbleweed.

Root has patched CVE-2026-102272 in the pyjwt package for Root:PyPI. Multiple fixed versions available.

YuSung Han discovered that PyJWT did not properly validate certain JWK keys when performing HMAC verification. An attacker could possibly use this issue to forge authentication tokens. This issue only affected Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-102266)

Rohan Das discovered that PyJWT incorrectly handled redirects when fetching key sets. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause PyJWT to disclose sensitive information. This issue only affected Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-102267)

It was discovered that PyJWT incorrectly recognized certain PEM representations. An attacker who knew the public key could possibly use this issue to forge authentication tokens. This issue only affected Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-102268)

Nuno Lopes discovered that PyJWT incorrectly handled DER public keys when performing HMAC verification. An attacker who knew the public key could possibly use this issue to forge authentication tokens. (CVE-2026-102271)

It was discovered that PyJWT did not properly handle certain JWK keys prefixed with a byte-order mark. An attacker who knew the public key could possibly use this issue to forge authentication tokens. (CVE-2026-102272)

Charles Vosburgh discovered that PyJWT incorrectly handled certain JWK containers when performing HMAC verification. An attacker who knew the public key could possibly use this issue to forge authentication tokens. (CVE-2026-102273)

USN-8916-1 fixed vulnerabilities in PyJWT. This update provides the corresponding fix for PyJWT on Ubuntu 26.10.

Original advisory details:

YuSung Han discovered that PyJWT did not properly validate certain JWK keys when performing HMAC verification. An attacker could possibly use this issue to forge authentication tokens. (CVE-2026-102266)

Rohan Das discovered that PyJWT incorrectly handled redirects when fetching key sets. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause PyJWT to disclose sensitive information. (CVE-2026-102267)

It was discovered that PyJWT incorrectly recognized certain PEM representations. An attacker who knew the public key could possibly use this issue to forge authentication tokens. (CVE-2026-102268)

Nuno Lopes discovered that PyJWT incorrectly handled DER public keys when performing HMAC verification. An attacker who knew the public key could possibly use this issue to forge authentication tokens. (CVE-2026-102271)

It was discovered that PyJWT did not properly handle certain JWK keys prefixed with a byte-order mark. An attacker who knew the public key could possibly use this issue to forge authentication tokens. (CVE-2026-102272)

Charles Vosburgh discovered that PyJWT incorrectly handled certain JWK containers when performing HMAC verification. An attacker who knew the public key could possibly use this issue to forge authentication tokens. (CVE-2026-102273)