CVE-2026-101918VulnerabilityPublished 30 Sep 2026Updated 27 Oct 2026

pre-verification payload parse (PyJWKClient.get_signing_key_from_jwt / · PyJWT: Unauthenticated RecursionError DoS

Affects hermes-agentSource GCVE Database

Authoritative record:CVE-2026-101918· Medium 5.3

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.3 Medium : upgrade to 0.22.4 when convenient.

Data as of 27 Oct 2026, 21:01 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.3Medium

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

Patch: Available – fixed in 0.22.4

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
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: 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: 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 Sep 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: 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 26 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.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, 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 hermes-agent to 0.22.4.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Homebrewhermes-agent`pkg:brew/hermes-agent`Other threats	Affected >=0.21.6 <0.22.4 >=2026.4.30 <=2026.9.24	Fixed in 0.22.4

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 PyJWT version 0.22.4 that fixes this issue by catching RecursionError during JSON parsing of JWT payloads and JWKS responses. Users should upgrade to version 0.22.4 or later. No additional mitigation is required as the fix addresses the root cause. If upgrading is not immediately possible, consider rejecting tokens with unusually large or deeply nested payloads as a temporary measure.

Description

PyJWT versions before 0.22.4 contain a vulnerability where deeply nested JSON payloads in JWT tokens cause an unhandled RecursionError during parsing. This error occurs before signature verification, allowing unauthenticated attackers to cause denial-of-service by crashing the authentication handler. A similar issue affects JWKS endpoint response parsing. The flaw was fixed in version 0.22.4 by extending exception handling to include RecursionError.

Impact

An unauthenticated attacker can send a specially crafted JWT token with a deeply nested JSON payload that triggers a RecursionError during payload parsing, causing the authentication handler to crash (HTTP 500 or dead worker). This results in a denial-of-service condition. The vulnerability does not allow bypassing authentication or compromise of data integrity or confidentiality. The JWKS endpoint parsing issue requires control or man-in-the-middle access to the JWKS endpoint and is less likely exploitable from arbitrary clients. No known exploits in the wild have been reported.

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 27 Oct 2026, 21:01 UTC

Technical details

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