CVE-2022-23541 MEDIUM

CVE-2022-23541: jsonwebtoken's insecure implementation of key retrieval function could lead to Forgeable Public/Private Tokens from RSA to HMAC

Vendor Auth0
Product node-jsonwebtoken
Weakness CWE-287 · Improper authentication
Published December 22, 2022
Last update February 13, 2025

CVSS base score

5.0/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity High
Privileges required Low
User interaction None
Confidentiality Low
Integrity Low

CVSS vector

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

What the vulnerability does

01Description

jsonwebtoken is an implementation of JSON Web Tokens. Versions `<= 8.5.1` of `jsonwebtoken` library can be misconfigured so that passing a poorly implemented key retrieval function referring to the `secretOrPublicKey` argument from the readme link will result in incorrect verification of tokens. There is a possibility of using a different algorithm and key combination in verification, other than the one that was used to sign the tokens. Specifically, tokens signed with an asymmetric public key could be verified with a symmetric HS256 algorithm. This can lead to successful validation of forged tokens. If your application is supporting usage of both symmetric key and asymmetric key in jwt.verify() implementation with the same key retrieval function. This issue has been patched, please update to version 9.0.0.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

December 22, 2022 CVE published
February 13, 2025 Record updated