{"id":"CVE-2021-29443","aliases":["EUVD-2021-0764","GHSA-58f5-hfqc-jgch"],"status":"published","title":"Padding Oracle Attack due to Observable Timing Discrepancy in jose","description":"jose is an npm library providing a number of cryptographic operations. In vulnerable versions AES_CBC_HMAC_SHA2 Algorithm (A128CBC-HS256, A192CBC-HS384, A256CBC-HS512) decryption would always execute both HMAC tag verification and CBC decryption, if either failed `JWEDecryptionFailed` would be thrown. A possibly observable difference in timing when padding error would occur while decrypting the ciphertext makes a padding oracle and an adversary might be able to make use of that oracle to decrypt data without knowing the decryption key by issuing on average 128*b calls to the padding oracle (where b is the number of bytes in the ciphertext block). All major release versions have had a patch released which ensures the HMAC tag is verified before performing CBC decryption. The fixed versions are `^1.28.1 || ^2.0.5 || \u003e=3.11.4`. Users should upgrade their v1.x dependency to ^1.28.1, their v2.x dependency to ^2.0.5, and their v3.x dependency to ^3.11.4. Thanks to Jason from Microsoft Vulnerability Research (MSVR) for bringing this up and Eva Sarafianou (@esarafianou) for helping to score this advisory.","severity":{"version":"3.1","score":5.9,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N","level":"medium","assessor":"cna","from":"cve"},"epss":{"day":"2026-11-10","score":0.01167,"percentile":0.67607,"model":"v2026.06.15"},"facts":{"in_kev":false,"known_exploited":false,"public_exploit":false,"fix_available":true},"cwes":["CWE-203","CWE-696"],"published":"2021-04-16T17:35:12Z","modified":"2026-10-20T10:54:37Z","fixes":[{"ecosystem":"npm","package":"jose","fixed_in":["1.28.1","2.0.5","3.11.4"],"sources":["ghsa","osv"]}],"affected":[{"source":"ghsa","ecosystem":"npm","package":"jose","ranges":[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"1.0.0"},{"fixed":"1.28.1"}]}]},{"source":"ghsa","ecosystem":"npm","package":"jose","ranges":[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"2.0.0"},{"fixed":"2.0.5"}]}]},{"source":"ghsa","ecosystem":"npm","package":"jose","ranges":[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"3.0.0"},{"fixed":"3.11.4"}]}]},{"source":"osv","ecosystem":"npm","package":"jose","ranges":[{"type":"SEMVER","events":[{"introduced":"1.0.0"},{"fixed":"1.28.1"}]}]},{"source":"osv","ecosystem":"npm","package":"jose","ranges":[{"type":"SEMVER","events":[{"introduced":"2.0.0"},{"fixed":"2.0.5"}]}]},{"source":"osv","ecosystem":"npm","package":"jose","ranges":[{"type":"SEMVER","events":[{"introduced":"3.0.0"},{"fixed":"3.11.4"}]}]}],"products":[{"vendor":"appsup-dart","product":"jose"},{"vendor":"panva","product":"jose"}],"references":[{"url":"https://github.com/panva/jose/security/advisories/GHSA-58f5-hfqc-jgch","tags":["x_refsource_CONFIRM","x_transferred","Patch","Third Party Advisory","fix","web"]},{"url":"https://www.npmjs.com/package/jose","tags":["x_refsource_MISC","x_transferred","Third Party Advisory","advisory","web"]},{"url":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-29443","tags":["advisory"]},{"url":"https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-58f5-hfqc-jgch"}],"sources":{"cve":[{"id":"CVE-2021-29443","title":"Padding Oracle Attack due to Observable Timing Discrepancy in jose","description":"jose is an npm library providing a number of cryptographic operations. In vulnerable versions AES_CBC_HMAC_SHA2 Algorithm (A128CBC-HS256, A192CBC-HS384, A256CBC-HS512) decryption would always execute both HMAC tag verification and CBC decryption, if either failed `JWEDecryptionFailed` would be thrown. A possibly observable difference in timing when padding error would occur while decrypting the ciphertext makes a padding oracle and an adversary might be able to make use of that oracle to decrypt data without knowing the decryption key by issuing on average 128*b calls to the padding oracle (where b is the number of bytes in the ciphertext block). All major release versions have had a patch released which ensures the HMAC tag is verified before performing CBC decryption. The fixed versions are `^1.28.1 || ^2.0.5 || \u003e=3.11.4`. Users should upgrade their v1.x dependency to ^1.28.1, their v2.x dependency to ^2.0.5, and their v3.x dependency to ^3.11.4. Thanks to Jason from Microsoft Vulnerability Research (MSVR) for bringing this up and Eva Sarafianou (@esarafianou) for helping to score this advisory.","status":"published","published":"2021-04-16T17:35:12Z","modified":"2024-08-03T22:02:52.017Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":5.9,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N","level":"medium","assessor":"cna"}],"cwes":["CWE-203"],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T14:33:06.658806Z"}],"euvd":[{"id":"EUVD-2021-0764","description":"jose is an npm library providing a number of cryptographic operations. In vulnerable versions AES_CBC_HMAC_SHA2 Algorithm (A128CBC-HS256, A192CBC-HS384, A256CBC-HS512) decryption would always execute both HMAC tag verification and CBC decryption, if either failed `JWEDecryptionFailed` would be thrown. A possibly observable difference in timing when padding error would occur while decrypting the ciphertext makes a padding oracle and an adversary might be able to make use of that oracle to decrypt data without knowing the decryption key by issuing on average 128*b calls to the padding oracle (where b is the number of bytes in the ciphertext block). All major release versions have had a patch released which ensures the HMAC tag is verified before performing CBC decryption. The fixed versions are `^1.28.1 || ^2.0.5 || \u003e=3.11.4`. Users should upgrade their v1.x dependency to ^1.28.1, their v2.x dependency to ^2.0.5, and their v3.x dependency to ^3.11.4. Thanks to Jason from Microsoft Vulnerability Research (MSVR) for bringing this up and Eva Sarafianou (@esarafianou) for helping to score this advisory.","status":"published","published":"2021-04-16T17:35:12Z","modified":"2024-08-03T22:02:52Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":5.9,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N","level":"medium"}],"updated_at":"2026-11-03T03:24:44.540278Z"}],"ghsa":[{"id":"GHSA-58f5-hfqc-jgch","title":"Padding Oracle Attack due to Observable Timing Discrepancy in jose","description":"jose is an npm library providing a number of cryptographic operations.\n### Impact\n\n[AES_CBC_HMAC_SHA2 Algorithm](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7518#section-5.2) (A128CBC-HS256, A192CBC-HS384, A256CBC-HS512) decryption would always execute both HMAC tag verification and CBC decryption, if either failed `JWEDecryptionFailed` would be thrown. But a possibly observable difference in timing when padding error would occur while decrypting the ciphertext makes a padding oracle and an adversary might be able to make use of that oracle to decrypt data without knowing the decryption key by issuing on average 128*b calls to the padding oracle (where b is the number of bytes in the ciphertext block).\n\n### Patches\n\nAll major release versions have had a patch released which ensures the HMAC tag is verified before performing CBC decryption. The fixed versions are `^1.28.1 || ^2.0.5 || \u003e=3.11.4`.\n\nUsers should upgrade their v1.x dependency to [`^1.28.1`](https://github.com/panva/jose/releases/tag/v1.28.1), their v2.x dependency to [`^2.0.5`](https://github.com/panva/jose/releases/tag/v2.0.5), and their v3.x dependency to [`^3.11.4`](https://github.com/panva/jose/releases/tag/v3.11.4)\n\n### Credits\nThanks to Morgan Brown of Microsoft for bringing this up and Eva Sarafianou (@esarafianou) for helping to score this advisory.","status":"published","published":"2021-04-19T14:57:22Z","modified":"2023-02-01T05:05:25Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":5.9,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N","level":"medium"}],"cwes":["CWE-203","CWE-696"],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T14:36:34.260786Z"}],"nvd":[{"id":"CVE-2021-29443","description":"jose is an npm library providing a number of cryptographic operations. In vulnerable versions AES_CBC_HMAC_SHA2 Algorithm (A128CBC-HS256, A192CBC-HS384, A256CBC-HS512) decryption would always execute both HMAC tag verification and CBC decryption, if either failed `JWEDecryptionFailed` would be thrown. A possibly observable difference in timing when padding error would occur while decrypting the ciphertext makes a padding oracle and an adversary might be able to make use of that oracle to decrypt data without knowing the decryption key by issuing on average 128*b calls to the padding oracle (where b is the number of bytes in the ciphertext block). All major release versions have had a patch released which ensures the HMAC tag is verified before performing CBC decryption. The fixed versions are `^1.28.1 || ^2.0.5 || \u003e=3.11.4`. Users should upgrade their v1.x dependency to ^1.28.1, their v2.x dependency to ^2.0.5, and their v3.x dependency to ^3.11.4. Thanks to Jason from Microsoft Vulnerability Research (MSVR) for bringing this up and Eva Sarafianou (@esarafianou) for helping to score this advisory.","status":"published","published":"2021-04-16T18:15:13.59Z","modified":"2026-06-22T03:10:06.18Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":5.9,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N","level":"medium","assessor":"secondary"},{"version":"3.1","score":5.9,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N","level":"medium","assessor":"primary"},{"version":"2.0","score":4.3,"vector":"AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N","level":"medium","assessor":"primary"}],"cwes":["CWE-203"],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T14:06:52.03307Z"}],"osv":[{"id":"CVE-2021-29443","description":"jose is an npm library providing a number of cryptographic operations. In vulnerable versions AES_CBC_HMAC_SHA2 Algorithm (A128CBC-HS256, A192CBC-HS384, A256CBC-HS512) decryption would always execute both HMAC tag verification and CBC decryption, if either failed `JWEDecryptionFailed` would be thrown. A possibly observable difference in timing when padding error would occur while decrypting the ciphertext makes a padding oracle and an adversary might be able to make use of that oracle to decrypt data without knowing the decryption key by issuing on average 128*b calls to the padding oracle (where b is the number of bytes in the ciphertext block). All major release versions have had a patch released which ensures the HMAC tag is verified before performing CBC decryption. The fixed versions are `^1.28.1 || ^2.0.5 || \u003e=3.11.4`. Users should upgrade their v1.x dependency to ^1.28.1, their v2.x dependency to ^2.0.5, and their v3.x dependency to ^3.11.4. Thanks to Jason from Microsoft Vulnerability Research (MSVR) for bringing this up and Eva Sarafianou (@esarafianou) for helping to score this advisory.","status":"published","published":"2021-04-16T18:15:13.59Z","modified":"2026-10-20T10:54:37.108585608Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":5.9,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N","level":"medium"}],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T15:44:19.129331Z"},{"id":"GHSA-58f5-hfqc-jgch","title":"Padding Oracle Attack due to Observable Timing Discrepancy in jose","description":"jose is an npm library providing a number of cryptographic operations.\n### Impact\n\n[AES_CBC_HMAC_SHA2 Algorithm](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7518#section-5.2) (A128CBC-HS256, A192CBC-HS384, A256CBC-HS512) decryption would always execute both HMAC tag verification and CBC decryption, if either failed `JWEDecryptionFailed` would be thrown. But a possibly observable difference in timing when padding error would occur while decrypting the ciphertext makes a padding oracle and an adversary might be able to make use of that oracle to decrypt data without knowing the decryption key by issuing on average 128*b calls to the padding oracle (where b is the number of bytes in the ciphertext block).\n\n### Patches\n\nAll major release versions have had a patch released which ensures the HMAC tag is verified before performing CBC decryption. The fixed versions are `^1.28.1 || ^2.0.5 || \u003e=3.11.4`.\n\nUsers should upgrade their v1.x dependency to [`^1.28.1`](https://github.com/panva/jose/releases/tag/v1.28.1), their v2.x dependency to [`^2.0.5`](https://github.com/panva/jose/releases/tag/v2.0.5), and their v3.x dependency to [`^3.11.4`](https://github.com/panva/jose/releases/tag/v3.11.4)\n\n### Credits\nThanks to Morgan Brown of Microsoft for bringing this up and Eva Sarafianou (@esarafianou) for helping to score this advisory.","status":"published","published":"2021-04-19T14:57:22Z","modified":"2026-07-08T06:27:54.450991309Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":5.9,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N","level":"medium"}],"cwes":["CWE-203","CWE-696"],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T15:46:38.213481Z"}]}}