node-forge has ASN.1 Unbounded Recursion
Summary
An Uncontrolled Recursion (CWE-674) vulnerability in node-forge versions 1.3.1 and below enables remote, unauthenticated attackers to craft deep ASN.1 structures that trigger unbounded recursive parsing. This leads to a Denial-of-Service (DoS) via stack exhaustion when parsing untrusted DER inputs.
Details
An ASN.1 Denial of Service (Dos) vulnerability exists in the node-forge asn1.fromDer function within forge/lib/asn1.js. The ASN.1 DER parser implementation (_fromDer) recurses for every constructed ASN.1 value (SEQUENCE, SET, etc.) and lacks a guard limiting recursion depth. An attacker can craft a small DER blob containing a very large nesting depth of constructed TLVs which causes the Node.js V8 engine to exhaust its call stack and throw RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded, crashing or incapacitating the process handling the parse. This is a remote, low-cost Denial-of-Service against applications that parse untrusted ASN.1 objects.
Impact
This vulnerability enables an unauthenticated attacker to reliably crash a server or client using node-forge for TLS connections or certificate parsing.
This vulnerability impacts the ans1.fromDer function in node-forge before patched version 1.3.2.
Any downstream application using this component is impacted. These components may be leveraged by downstream applications in ways that enable full compromise of availability.
Affected software
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| Platform | Package | Vulnerable versions | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| npm package | node-forge | < 1.3.2 | 1.3.2 |
References
- CVSS vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N- Weakness (CWE)
CWE-674- Platform
- npm
- Package
node-forge- Disclosed
- 26.11.2025
- Updated
- 11.10.2026 10:22
Sources and licenses
OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-554w-wpv2-vw27 - CC BY 4.0
Vulnerability history: node-forge
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
- 15
- First → latest
- 09.2020 03.2026
- Without a fix
- 0
- Exploited in attacks
- 0
Severity breakdown
- High 9
- Medium 3
- Low 3
Disclosures per year
- 2020: 1
- 2021: 0
- 2022: 7
- 2023: 0
- 2024: 0
- 2025: 3
- 2026: 4
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node-forge has ASN.1 Unbounded Recursion this entry
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