Security advisory
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.
- Products
- Not specified
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- Not specified
- CVEs
- CVE-2021-29443
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 31 Oct 2026, 11:43 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
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.
osv:CVE-2021-29443
Complete source record
{
"id": "bfb4d2c1f86a58834111cfb087f92430a10f1ca8d6b432885d6e20dff7ba2fd9",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-29443",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "CVE-2021-29443",
"summary": "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.",
"evidence": "osv:CVE-2021-29443",
"products": [],
"severity": "medium",
"structured": {
"id": "CVE-2021-29443",
"aliases": [
"CVE-2021-29443",
"GHSA-58f5-hfqc-jgch"
],
"metrics": [
{
"type": "CVSS_V3",
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N"
}
],
"affected": [
{
"ranges": [
{
"repo": "https://github.com/panva/jose",
"type": "GIT",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "6a32da6937c602f88fc2c527651a66d8574e6612"
},
{
"fixed": "51e0d8b3fbc1faebf67f6dbaced1095534d7017f"
},
{
"introduced": "1876669a192e0c5d6b8c29a7408a8a8128d0b8b1"
},
{
"fixed": "2269f4b2c56828a0972865f42bf3901cc970cd16"
},
{
"introduced": "076eea11bb6e3f9e284663e53923747a2a6f6c3e"
},
{
"fixed": "5a7078a4a2e0b0d069c48db94ccb4714033316f0"
}
],
"database_specific": {
"extracted_events": [
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:panva:jose:*:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*",
"range": [
{
"introduced": "1.0.0"
},
{
"fixed": "1.28.1"
}
],
"source": "CPE_RANGE"
},
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:panva:jose:*:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*",
"range": [
{
"introduced": "2.0.0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.0.5"
}
],
"source": "CPE_RANGE"
},
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:panva:jose:*:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*",
"range": [
{
"introduced": "3.0.0"
},
{
"fixed": "3.11.4"
}
],
"source": "CPE_RANGE"
}
]
}
}
],
"versions": [
"v1.28.0",
"v3.11.3",
"v3.11.2",
"v3.11.1",
"v3.11.0",
"v3.10.0",
"v3.9.0",
"v3.8.0",
"v3.7.1",
"v3.7.0",
"v3.6.2",
"v3.6.1",
"v3.6.0",
"v3.5.4",
"v3.5.3",
"v3.5.2",
"v2.0.4",
"v3.5.1",
"v3.5.0",
"v3.4.0",
"v3.3.2",
"v3.3.1",
"v3.3.0",
"v3.2.0",
"v3.1.3",
"v3.1.2",
"v3.1.1",
"v3.1.0",
"v3.0.2",
"v3.0.1",
"v3.0.0",
"v2.0.3",
"v2.0.2",
"v2.0.1",
"v2.0.0",
"v1.27.3",
"v1.27.2",
"v1.27.1",
"v1.27.0",
"v1.26.1",
"v1.26.0",
"v1.25.2",
"v1.25.1",
"v1.25.0",
"v1.24.1",
"v1.24.0",
"v1.23.0",
"v1.22.2",
"v1.22.1",
"v1.22.0",
"v1.21.1",
"v1.21.0",
"v1.20.0",
"v1.19.0",
"v1.18.2",
"v1.18.1",
"v1.18.0",
"v1.17.2",
"v1.17.1",
"v1.17.0",
"v1.16.2",
"v1.16.1",
"v1.16.0",
"v1.15.1",
"v1.15.0",
"v1.14.0",
"v1.13.0",
"v1.12.1",
"v1.12.0",
"v1.11.0",
"v1.10.2",
"v1.10.1",
"v1.10.0",
"v1.9.2",
"v1.9.1",
"v1.9.0",
"v1.8.0",
"v1.7.0",
"v1.6.1",
"v1.6.0",
"v1.5.2",
"v1.5.1",
"v1.5.0",
"v1.4.1",
"v1.4.0",
"v1.3.0",
"v1.0.2",
"v1.0.1",
"v1.0.0"
],
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2021-29443.json"
}
}
],
"modified": "2026-10-20T10:54:37.108585608Z",
"provider": "osv",
"references": [
"https://www.npmjs.com/package/jose",
"https://github.com/panva/jose/security/advisories/GHSA-58f5-hfqc-jgch"
],
"provider_metadata": {}
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2021-29443",
"evidence": "/id"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 385747,
"published_at": "2021-04-16T18:15:13.59+00:00"
}