CVE-2025-24976 MEDIUM

CVE-2025-24976: Distribution's token authentication allows attacker to inject an untrusted signing key in a JWT

Vendor Distribution
Product distribution
Weakness CWE-639 · IDOR
Published February 11, 2025
Last update January 23, 2026

CVSS base score

6.6/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required None
User interaction None
Confidentiality
Integrity

CVSS vector

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U

What the vulnerability does

01Description

Distribution is a toolkit to pack, ship, store, and deliver container content. Systems running registry versions 3.0.0-beta.1 through 3.0.0-rc.2 with token authentication enabled may be vulnerable to an issue in which token authentication allows an attacker to inject an untrusted signing key in a JSON web token (JWT). The issue lies in how the JSON web key (JWK) verification is performed. When a JWT contains a JWK header without a certificate chain, the code only checks if the KeyID (`kid`) matches one of the trusted keys, but doesn't verify that the actual key material matches. A fix for the issue is available at commit 5ea9aa028db65ca5665f6af2c20ecf9dc34e5fcd and expected to be a part of version 3.0.0-rc.3. There is no way to work around this issue without patching if the system requires token authentication.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

February 11, 2025 CVE published
January 23, 2026 Record updated