CVE-2026-119283VulnerabilityPublished 31 Oct 2026

weaviate-cli · joserfc: Unbounded JWE General JSON `recipients` Array Leads to CPU Exhaustion (DoS) via Repeated RSA Private-Key

Affects weaviate-cliSource GCVE Database

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Authoritative record:CVE-2026-119283· High 7.5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High : upgrade to 3.4.2_1 soon.

Data as of 31 Oct 2026, 16:23 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.5High

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 3.1	7.5

Patch: Available – fixed in 3.4.2_1

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

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

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: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
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: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 29 Oct 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 weaviate-cli to 3.4.2_1.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Homebrewweaviate-cli`pkg:brew/weaviate-cli`Other threats	Affected >=3.4.1 <3.4.2_1	Fixed in 3.4.2_1

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 in joserfc version 3.4.2_1 that addresses this vulnerability by presumably adding limits on the recipients array processing. Users should upgrade to version 3.4.2_1 or later. The existing verify_all_recipients option does not mitigate CPU exhaustion and should not be relied upon as a defense.

Description

The joserfc library's JWE General JSON decryption function accepts an attacker-controlled recipients array of unbounded length, causing the library to perform one RSA private-key decryption operation per recipient without limit. This leads to a CPU exhaustion denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability. The documented mitigation option does not reduce CPU usage, and no upper bound check exists on the number of recipients. The vulnerability is fixed in version 3.4.2_1.

Impact

An unauthenticated attacker can send a single JWE General JSON document with a large recipients array to a service using joserfc for decryption with an RSA key. This forces the service to perform a proportional number of expensive RSA private-key operations, resulting in high CPU usage and denial of service. The vulnerability does not impact confidentiality or integrity but causes availability degradation due to resource exhaustion.

Summary

The joserfc library's public API decrypt_json() parses JWE General JSON Serialization inputs and processes every recipient in the recipients array by performing a private-key decryption operation for each. There is no validation or upper bound on the number of recipients, allowing an attacker to craft a JWE with an arbitrarily large recipients array. Each recipient triggers an RSA private-key decryption, causing CPU exhaustion. The library's verify_all_recipients flag does not mitigate the CPU cost since the decrypt loop runs before this flag is checked. The vulnerability is identified as CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) and has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (High). The issue is fixed in joserfc version 3.4.2_1.

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Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 31 Oct 2026, 16:23 UTC

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