CVE-2021-29445 MEDIUM

CVE-2021-29445: Padding Oracle Attack due to Observable Timing Discrepancy in jose-node-esm-runtime

Vendor Panva
Product jose-node-esm-runtime
Weakness CWE-203
Published April 16, 2021
Last update August 3, 2024

CVSS base score

5.9/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity High
Privileges required None
User interaction None
Confidentiality High
Integrity None

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

What the vulnerability does

01Description

jose-node-esm-runtime is an npm package which provides a number of cryptographic functions. In versions prior to 3.11.4 the 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. 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). A patch was released which ensures the HMAC tag is verified before performing CBC decryption. The fixed versions are `>=3.11.4`. Users should upgrade to `^3.11.4`.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

April 16, 2021 CVE published
August 3, 2024 Record updated