CVE-2026-25537
jsonwebtoken has Type Confusion that leads to potential authorization bypass
jsonwebtoken is a JWT lib in rust. Prior to version 10.3.0, there is a Type Confusion vulnerability in jsonwebtoken, specifically, in its claim validation logic. When a standard claim (such as nbf or exp) is provided with an incorrect JSON type (Like a String instead of a Number), the library’s internal parsing mechanism marks the claim as “FailedToParse”. Crucially, the validation logic treats this “FailedToParse” state identically to “NotPresent”. This means that if a check is enabled (like: validate_nbf = true), but the claim is not explicitly marked as required in required_spec_claims, the library will skip the validation check entirely for the malformed claim, treating it as if it were not there. This allows attackers to bypass critical time-based security restrictions (like “Not Before” checks) and commit potential authentication and authorization bypasses. This issue has been patched in version 10.3.0.
- Affected
- Keats · jsonwebtoken
- CVSS v4.0 GITHUB
- 5.5 MEDIUM
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X - CVSS v4.0 GitHub
- 5.5 MEDIUM
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P - CVSS v3.1 NVD
- 7.5 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N - EPSS
- 0.62% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, 49th percentile
- Published
- 2026-02-04
- Updated
- 2026-02-05
Proof-of-concept exploits (1)
Security advisories
- Keats/jsonwebtoken/security/advisories/GHSA-h395-gr6q-cpjc
- Keats/jsonwebtoken/commit/abbc3076742c4161347bc6b8bf4aa5eb86e1dc01