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CVE-2026-65629VulnerabilityPublished Updated

Use of Password Hash With Insufficient Computational Effort in the jose library allows an attacker who obtains a password-encrypted private-key export to recover the private key through an offline password-cracking attack

Affects joseSource GCVE Database

0
Authoritative record:CVE-2026-65629· High 7.4

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.4 High.

Data as of 28 Oct 2026, 22:28 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score
7.4High
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 26 Oct 2026

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponised: 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 26 Oct 2026.

What to do

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
Ubuntu 26.10josepkg:deb/ubuntu/jose?arch=source&distro=stonkingOther threatsAffected
  • =14-2build1
  • =14-2build2
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 26.04 LTSjosepkg:deb/ubuntu/jose?arch=source&distro=resoluteOther threatsAffected
  • =14-2build1
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSjosepkg:deb/ubuntu/jose?arch=source&distro=nobleOther threatsAffected
  • 11-2 – 13-1
5 affected builds
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 22.04 LTSjosepkg:deb/ubuntu/jose?arch=source&distro=jammyOther threatsAffected
  • =10-3
  • =11-2
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 20.04 LTSjosepkg:deb/ubuntu/jose?arch=source&distro=focalOther threatsAffected
  • =10-2build2
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 18.04 LTSjosepkg:deb/ubuntu/jose?arch=source&distro=bionicOther threatsAffected
  • =10-2
  • =10-2build1
Fixed in–

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

Description

Use of Password Hash With Insufficient Computational Effort in the jose library allows an attacker who obtains a password-encrypted private-key export to recover the private key through an offline password-cracking attack. When jose exports a password-encrypted private key with jose_jwk:to_der/2 (JOSE.JWK.to_der/2), the jose_jwk_der:to_binary/3 function in src/jwk/jose_jwk_der.erl serializes the key as a PKCS#8 EncryptedPrivateKeyInfo using the PBES2 scheme with hardcoded key-derivation parameters: PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 with an iteration count of 2048 and an 8-byte (64-bit) random salt. Neither value can be overridden by the caller. Both values are far below current guidance (OWASP recommends on the order of 600,000 iterations for PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256, and NIST recommends salts of at least 128 bits), so the key-stretching work factor is roughly 300 times lower than intended and the short salt reduces the cost of precomputation across keys. The symmetric encryption (AES-256-CBC with a 16-byte random IV) is not affected; the weakness is entirely in the derivation strength. An attacker who obtains one of these exported blobs (for example from a backup, configuration repository, object storage, or logs) can mount a cheap offline dictionary or brute-force attack against the export password, and success yields the full private key. This issue affects jose: from 1.10.0 before 1.11.13.

References

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