CVE-2021-29445

mediumpriority · track · 24EPSS 0.011 · 65 %ileEUUS
grimoire priorityP3 · Track
Exploitable?
—
no known exploitation
Likely / severe?
1.07% (65th) EPSS
CVSS 4.3 · medium
Is it mine?
3 products
Check your exposure
Who says so?
4 sources
cnnvd · enisa_euvd · nvd · osv

EPSS · scored 2026-10-26

jose-node-esm-runtime is an npm package which provides a number of cryptographic functions. In versions prior to 3.11.4 the AES_CBC_HMAC_SHA2 Algorithm (A128CBC-HS256, A192CBC-HS384, A256CBC-HS512) decryption would always execute both HMAC tag verification and CBC decryption, if either failed `JWEDecryptionFailed` would be thrown. But a possibly observable difference in timing when padding error would occur while decrypting the ciphertext makes a padding oracle and an adversary might be able to make use of that oracle to decrypt data without knowing the decryption key by issuing on average 128*b calls to the padding oracle (where b is the number of bytes in the ciphertext block). A patch was released which ensures the HMAC tag is verified before performing CBC decryption. The fixed versions are `>=3.11.4`. Users should upgrade to `^3.11.4`.

01

cvss

Technical severity, 0–10. One row per scoring source.

5.9
010

base score 0–10 · higher = more severe · hover a vector to decode

v2.04.3mediumAV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:Nprimary · NVD / NIST USexploitability 8.6 · impact 2.9
v3.15.9mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:Nprimary · NVD / NIST USexploitability 2.2 · impact 3.6
v3.15.9mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:Nsecondary · ENISA EU
v3.15.9mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:Nsecondary · security-advisories@github.comexploitability 2.2 · impact 3.6
v3.15.9mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:Nsecondary · OSV
v3.15.4mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N/E:Usecondary · CVSS-BT (t0sche)
02

weaknesses

The CWE weakness classes this flaw belongs to.

CWE-203USCWE-203USCWE-208USCWE-696US
03

affected products (3)

Products and version ranges known to be affected.

04

advisories (1)

Vendor and ecosystem advisories describing this.

  • GHSA-4v4g-726h-xvfvPadding Oracle Attack due to Observable Timing Discrepancy in jose-node-esm-runtime2021-04-19ghsa · osvUS

    ### Impact [AES_CBC_HMAC_SHA2 Algorithm](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7518#section-5.2) (A128CBC-HS256, A192CBC-HS384, A256CBC-HS512) decryption would always execute both HMAC tag verification and CBC decryption, if either failed `JWEDecryptionFailed` would be thrown. But a possibly observable difference in timing when padding error would occur while decrypting the ciphertext makes a padding oracle and an adversary might be able to make use of that oracle to decrypt data without knowing the decryption key by issuing on average 128*b calls to the padding oracle (where b is the number of bytes in the ciphertext block). ### Patches A patch was released which ensures the HMAC tag is verified before performing CBC decryption. The fixed versions are `>=3.11.4`. Users should upgrade to `^3.11.4`. ### Credits Thanks to Morgan Brown of Microsoft for bringing this up and Eva Sarafianou (@esarafianou) for helping to score this advisory.

05

also known as (3)

Other names and identifiers for this entity.

06

sources

Which sources assert this record, and when.

cnnvdenisa_euvdnvdosvNVDCVE.orgMITRE
published 2021-04-16modified 2026-06-17
07

references (7)

External citations — patches, advisories, analysis.

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