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VulnerabilityPublished

CVE-2026-119186: Forge · AES-GCM authentication bypass via unvalidated tagLength option

Affects node-forgeSource GCVE Database

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Authoritative record:CVE-2026-119186· Medium 5.9

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.9 Medium : upgrade to 1.4.1 when convenient.

Data as of 31 Oct 2026, 01:55 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score
5.9Medium
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

Thin evidence

One scorer or none
CVSS scores by source
CNA (GitHub_M)CVSS 3.15.9
Patch
Available – fixed in 1.4.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 29 Oct 2026

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponized: no evidence on record.

    No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB

  4. Exploited in the wild: no evidence on record.

    Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation

  5. Observed by OffSeq 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.

What to do

Upgrade node-forge to 1.4.1.

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
npmnode-forgeAffected
  • <1.4.1
Fixed in
  • 1.4.1

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

AI-suggested

Upgrade node-forge to version 1.4.1 or later, where the tagLength option is validated against allowed values and invalid lengths cause start() to throw an error. If upgrading is not immediately possible, ensure that tagLength is never derived from untrusted input and always pass a fixed valid tagLength (or omit it to use the default 128 bits). Additionally, verify that the received authentication tag length matches the expected length before calling start(), for example by checking if tag.length === 16 for a 128-bit tag.

Description

A vulnerability in node-forge's AES-GCM implementation allows authentication bypass when the tagLength option passed to the cipher start() method is zero or converts to zero. This causes the authentication tag to be empty, making decipher.finish() return true for any ciphertext and additional data if the supplied tag is empty or missing. The issue is fixed in node-forge version 1.4.1 by validating the tagLength against allowed NIST values.

References

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