Padding Oracle Attack due to Observable Timing Discrepancy in jose-node-esm-runtime
Impact
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).
Patches
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.
Credits
Thanks to Morgan Brown of Microsoft for bringing this up and Eva Sarafianou (@esarafianou) for helping to score this advisory.
Affected software
Click a technology to see all vulnerabilities affecting it.
| Platform | Package | Vulnerable versions | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| npm package | jose-node-esm-runtime | < 3.11.4 | 3.11.4 |
References
- CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N- Weakness (CWE)
CWE-203, CWE-208, CWE-696- Platform
- npm
- Package
jose-node-esm-runtime- Disclosed
- 19.04.2021
- Updated
- 11.10.2026 10:22
Sources and licenses
OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-4v4g-726h-xvfv - CC BY 4.0
Vulnerability history: jose-node-esm-runtime
All published vulnerabilities of this package (npm package), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.
- Total entries
- 3
- First → latest
- 04.2021 03.2024
- Without a fix
- 0
- Exploited in attacks
- 0
Severity breakdown
- Medium 3
Disclosures per year
- 2021: 1
- 2022: 1
- 2023: 0
- 2024: 1
- 2025: 0
- 2026: 0
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