ECDSA signature length is not validated in jose, allowing signature malleability
Impact
The jose library accepts ECDSA (ES256, ES256K, ES384, and ES512) JWS signatures of a non-canonical length. When verifying an ECDSA signature, jose_jwk_kty_ec:verify/4 in src/jwk/jose_jwk_kty_ec.erl splits the raw signature in half by its actual byte length (split_binary(Signature, byte_size(Signature) div 2)) instead of enforcing the fixed length required by RFC 7518 §3.4, and then decodes each half with crypto:bytes_to_integer/1, which ignores leading zero bytes.
Source excerpt · OSVAffected packages
Start with the recorded fix for your release branch. Check your installed version and test compatibility before upgrading. Fixing this advisory does not rule out other vulnerabilities in the release.
| Affected range | Recorded fix |
|---|---|
| From 1.0.0 before 1.11.13Semantic versions | 1.11.13 |
Version evidence: OSV · EEF-CVE-2026-65632
View original version evidence (46 explicit versions)
Affected products
Vendor version evidence. Product records are separate from automatic dependency matching.
potatosalad · jose
Other versions: unaffected
| Version / range | Source status |
|---|---|
| 1.0.0 to before 1.11.13 | affected |
potatosalad · jose
Other versions: unaffected
| Version / range | Source status |
|---|---|
| a7746ecd4950f85a393136e449a91dac62b5c429 to before 72ce1866622b9329347dc52a94173ac0317bc9cf | affected |
Original source description
Summary
The jose library accepts ECDSA (ES256, ES256K, ES384, and ES512) JWS signatures of a non-canonical length. When verifying an ECDSA signature, jose_jwk_kty_ec:verify/4 in src/jwk/jose_jwk_kty_ec.erl splits the raw signature in half by its actual byte length (split_binary(Signature, byte_size(Signature) div 2)) instead of enforcing the fixed length required by RFC 7518 §3.4, and then decodes each half with crypto:bytes_to_integer/1, which ignores leading zero bytes.
As a result, an attacker who holds one valid token can prepend leading zero bytes to each of the R and S halves to produce longer signatures that still split evenly and decode to the same (r, s) pair, so many distinct signature byte strings all verify against the same key (signature malleability). This does not allow forging new payloads or impersonating a signer, because the underlying (r, s) values are unchanged. It does defeat any security control that assumes a valid token or its signature is unique, such as token-revocation-by-hash, replay or idempotency caches, and deduplication logic.
This issue affects jose: from 1.0.0 before 1.11.13.
Source version evidence
This source records affected versions without identifying a package ecosystem and name. This evidence is not used for package matching.
References
- Security advisory github.com/potatosalad/erlang-jose/security/advisories/GHSA-44hw-rpw9-mwg4
- Security advisory cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-65632.html
- Patch github.com/potatosalad/erlang-jose/commit/a7746ecd4950f85a393136e449a91dac62b5c429
- Patch github.com/potatosalad/erlang-jose/commit/72ce1866622b9329347dc52a94173ac0317bc9cf
- Source reference hex.pm/packages/jose
- Security advisory osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-65632