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High · 7.4 CVE-2026-65629 EEF-CVE-2026-65629EUVD-2026-110308GHSA-h4gx-8jq2-mfhc

Weak PBKDF2 parameters for password-encrypted private-key export in jose

Published Oct 26, 2026 · Updated Nov 2, 2026 · Assigned by EEF

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.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
potatosalad jose 1.10.0 – < 1.11.13 1.11.13

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 erlang-jose 1.11.13-1 —
Debian 13 erlang-jose No fix yet —
Debian 12 erlang-jose No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 26.10 jose No fix yet —
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS jose No fix yet —
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS jose No fix yet —
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS jose No fix yet —
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS jose No fix yet —
Show 1 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS jose No fix yet —

Azure Linux

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Azure Linux 3 rabbitmq-server No fix yet —

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
Hex jose >= 1.10.0, < 1.11.13 1.11.13 EEF-CVE-2026-65629

References