CVE Tools

CVE-2021-29443

Padding Oracle Attack due to Observable Timing Discrepancy in jose

Published: Apr 16, 2021Updated: Jun 22, 2026 Sources: CVE List NVD GHSACWE-203
5.9CVSSMEDIUM

Description

jose is an npm library providing a number of cryptographic operations. In vulnerable versions 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. 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). All major release versions have had a patch released which ensures the HMAC tag is verified before performing CBC decryption. The fixed versions are `^1.28.1 || ^2.0.5 || >=3.11.4`. Users should upgrade their v1.x dependency to ^1.28.1, their v2.x dependency to ^2.0.5, and their v3.x dependency to ^3.11.4. Thanks to Jason from Microsoft Vulnerability Research (MSVR) for bringing this up and Eva Sarafianou (@esarafianou) for helping to score this advisory.

CVSS Vector Breakdown

AV:NAC:HPR:NUI:NS:UC:HI:NA:N
Exploitability
AV:NAttack Vector
Network
AC:HAttack Complexity
High
PR:NPrivileges Required
None
UI:NUser Interaction
None
Scope
S:UScope
Unchanged
Impact
C:HConfidentiality
High
I:NIntegrity
None
A:NAvailability
None

Weaknesses

Affected Products

panvaoss-projectOSS Librariesaka panva
npmpackage-ecosystemOSS Libraries

Attack Graph

Products CVE Techniques Tactics

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Exploitability

Official Patch Available

MITRE ATT&CK

1 technique
Discovery
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References

Timeline

Published
Apr 16, 2021
Last Updated
Jun 22, 2026

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