VulnerabilityPublished 28 May 2026

CVE-2026-48524: jpadilla pyjwt · Improper Cleanup on Thrown Exception

Affects jpadilla pyjwtSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 3.7 Low : upgrade to 2.13.0 when convenient.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 11:52 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

3.7Low

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 34% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 2.13.0

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: High
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: Low

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: High: A successful attack depends on conditions beyond the attacker's control. That is, a successful attack cannot be accomplished at will, but requires the attacker to invest in some measurable amount of effort in preparation or execution against the vulnerable component before a successful attack can be expected. For example, a successful attack may require an attacker to: gather knowledge about the environment in which the vulnerable target/component exists; prepare the target environment to improve exploit reliability; or inject themselves into the logical network path between the target and the resource requested by the victim in order to read and/or modify network communications (e.g., a man in the middle attack).
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the impacted component are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 28 May 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 30 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade jpadilla pyjwt to 2.13.0.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
jpadillapyjwt	Affected <2.13.0	Fixed in 2.13.0
PyPIpyjwt`pkg:pypi/pyjwt`Other threats	Affected <2.13.0	Fixed in 2.13.0

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

A patch is available that addresses this issue by adding a refresh cooldown to prevent frequent JWKS refreshes within the TTL period and by moving the cache write operation from a finally block to an else block to avoid clearing valid cache data on errors. Users should upgrade to pyjwt version 2.13.0 or later to remediate this vulnerability.

Description

> [!NOTE] > The vulnerability surfaces only when a JWKS fetch fails; an attacker can attempt to provoke that with sustained unknown-kid traffic, but the outcome depends on upstream JWKS-endpoint behavior (rate limiting, transient errors) which is beyond the attacker's control. Impact is reduced auth availability until the next successful fetch, not complete denial of service. ## Summary PyJWKClient.get_signing_key() forces a fresh HTTP request to the JWKS endpoint for every JWT with an unknown kid value, with no rate limiting. Since kid comes from the unverified token header, an attacker can trigger unlimited outbound requests. Additionally, fetch_data() finally block clears the JWKS cache on network error. ## Root Cause jwt/jwks_client.py:172-198 - get_signing_key(kid) calls get_signing_keys(refresh=True) for unknown kids, bypassing TTL cache with no cooldown. jwt/jwks_client.py:120-122 - finally block writes None to cache on error, clearing valid data. ## Impact - DoS against JWKS endpoint (unlimited requests per invalid token) - DoS against application (network I/O latency) - Cascading failure (rate limiting clears cache, breaking legitimate auth) ## Suggested Fix 1. Add refresh cooldown (refuse refresh more than once per TTL period) 2. Move cache write from finally to else block ## Affected Versions All versions with PyJWKClient (2.4.0 through 2.12.1)

Impact

The vulnerability can be exploited to cause denial of service against the JWKS endpoint by triggering unlimited requests with invalid kid values. It can also degrade application availability due to network I/O latency and cause cascading failures by clearing the JWKS cache on network errors, which breaks legitimate authentication until the next successful fetch. The impact is limited to reduced authentication availability rather than complete denial of service.

CWE-460Improper Cleanup on Thrown Exception (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: MediumOWASP Top 10 A10:2025: Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions (opens in a new tab)
The product does not clean up its state or incorrectly cleans up its state when an exception is thrown.
Implementation
If one breaks from a loop or function by throwing an exception, make sure that cleanup happens or that you should exit the program. Use throwing exceptions sparsely.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Logging (opens in a new tab)
Error Handling (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).
CWE-755Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: MediumOWASP Top 10 A10:2025: Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions (opens in a new tab)
The product does not handle or incorrectly handles an exceptional condition.
MITRE discourages mapping vulnerabilities to this broad entry; the root cause is usually a more specific weakness.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Logging (opens in a new tab)
Error Handling (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

github.com/jpadilla/pyjwt/security/advisories/GHSA-fhv5-28vv-h8m8 (opens in a new tab)

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 1 Aug 2026, 21:28 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-460, CWE-755

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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