CVE-2020-14966: Jsrsasign ECDSA Signature Validation Vulnerability By Vulnerability

HIGH
Advisory Identifier: GHSA-p8c3-7rj8-q963
CVSS 7.5
CWE-347
Published
Advisory Summary

CVE-2020-14966 is a HIGH (CVSS 7.5) ecdsa signature validation vulnerability by vulnerability (CWE-347: Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature) affecting Jsrsasign libraries in the npm ecosystem. The issue involves ecdsa signature validation vulnerability by accepting wrong asn.1 encoding in jsrsasign. Remediation is available by upgrading affected packages to version 8.0.19.

CVE-2020-14966 at a Glance

CVE Identifier CVE-2020-14966
GHSA Identifier GHSA-p8c3-7rj8-q963
Severity HIGH
CVSS v3.1 Base Score 7.5
CWE Classification CWE-347: Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature
Affected Product Jsrsasign
Package Ecosystem npm
Published Date
Last Updated

Security Impact

CVSS: 7.5

The security impact metrics below are parsed directly from the CVSS v3.1 vector string (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N).

Attack Vector Network (AV:N)
Attack Complexity Low (AC:L)
Privileges Required None (PR:N)
User Interaction None (UI:N)
Scope Unchanged (S:U)
Confidentiality None (C:N)
Integrity High (I:H)
Availability None (A:N)

How to Fix CVE-2020-14966

To remediate this vulnerability, upgrade all affected Jsrsasign dependencies to a patched release. Both direct and transitive dependencies should be checked, as frameworks or security libraries may pull in vulnerable versions transitively.

jsrsasign fixed: 8.0.19
npm install jsrsasign@8.0.19
Verify Direct and Transitive Dependencies

Run the following command in your project directory to verify that all resolved dependencies use the patched release:

npm ls jsrsasign

How to Check if You Are Affected

To determine whether your Node.js application is affected by CVE-2020-14966, inspect your project dependencies using npm:

npm ls jsrsasign

Analyze the terminal output to locate any version of Jsrsasign in your dependency tree. If any resolved version matches the vulnerable ranges listed in the table below (for example, versions earlier than 8.0.19), your application is affected.

Note: The npm ls jsrsasign command inspects dependencies declared in your package.json and lockfile; it does not perform automated runtime dynamic scanning.

Technical Details

Vulnerability Mechanism & Technical Analysis

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-347: Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature, where the product does not verify, or incorrectly verifies, the cryptographic signature for data. In Jsrsasign, software state validation or input boundaries are circumvented during processing. Review the official source advisory statement below for specific affected components, classes, and reproduction details.

Source Advisory Statement

### Impact Jsrsasign supports ECDSA signature validation which signature value is represented by ASN.1 DER encoding. This vulnerablity may accept a wrong ASN.1 DER encoded ECDSA signature such as: - wrong multi-byte ASN.1 length of TLV (ex. 0x820045 even though 0x45 is correct) - prepending zeros with ASN.1 INTEGER value (ex. 0x00000123 even though 0x0123 is correct) - appending zeros to signature of ASN.1 TLV (ex. 0x3082....1fbc000000 even though 0x3082....1fbc, appending zeros are ignored.) This vulnerability was fixed by strict ASN.1 DER checking. Here is an assessment of this vulnerability: - If you are not use ECDSA signature validation, this vulnerability is not affected. - Not ASN.1 format signature like just concatenation of R and S value is not affected such as Bitcoin. - This vulnerability is affected to all ECC curve parameters. - Risk to accept a forged or crafted message to be signed is low. - Risk to raise memory corruption is low since jsrsasign uses BigInteger class. - ECDSA signatures semantically the same to valid one may be accepted as valid. There are many malleable variants. As discussed [here](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/24862/ber-or-der-x9-62-for-ecdsa-signature), there is no standards like X9.62 which requires ASN.1 DER. So ASN.1 BER can be applied to ECDSA however most of implementations like OpenSSL do strict ASN.1 DER checking. ### Patches Users using ECDSA signature validation should upgrade to 8.0.19. ### Workarounds Do strict ASN.1 DER checking for ASN.1 encoded ECDSA signature value. ### References https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-14966 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2020-14966 https://vuldb.com/?id.157123 https://github.com/kjur/jsrsasign/issues/437 https://kjur.github.io/jsrsasign/api/symbols/KJUR.crypto.ECDSA.html https://kjur.github.io/jsrsasign/api/symbols/ASN1HEX.html#.checkStrictDER https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.690

CVE-2020-14966 Affected Jsrsasign Versions

1 component(s)
Fixed Versions:
8.0.19
Product / Package Ecosystem Affected Versions Fixed Version
jsrsasign
npm
≥ 4.0.0
< 8.0.19
8.0.19

References

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2020-14966?
CVE-2020-14966 is a security vulnerability in Jsrsasign involving ECDSA signature validation vulnerability by accepting wrong ASN.1 encoding in jsrsasign under CWE-347: Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature.
Which Jsrsasign versions are affected?
Affected versions include releases prior to 8.0.19 across affected packages: jsrsasign.
What version fixes CVE-2020-14966?
Upgrading to 8.0.19 (or the latest patched release for your respective branch) resolves the vulnerability.
Is jsrsasign affected?
Yes, jsrsasign is affected in releases prior to 8.0.19. Upgrade your dependency to 8.0.19 or later.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2020-14966?
CVE-2020-14966 has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (HIGH) with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N.
What CWE is associated with CVE-2020-14966?
CVE-2020-14966 is classified under CWE-347: Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature (The product does not verify, or incorrectly verifies, the cryptographic signature for data.).
How can I check npm dependencies for CVE-2020-14966?
Run the dependency tree command: 'npm ls jsrsasign'. This command lists direct and transitive dependencies in your build configuration so you can verify if a vulnerable version is resolved.
Machine-readable OSV JSON OSV v1.5 Schema
Normalized schema output
{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-p8c3-7rj8-q963",
  "modified" : "2023-01-31T01:29:53Z",
  "published" : "2020-06-26T16:54:15Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2020-14966" ],
  "summary" : "ECDSA signature validation vulnerability by accepting wrong ASN.1 encoding in jsrsasign",
  "details" : "### Impact\nJsrsasign supports ECDSA signature validation which signature value is represented by ASN.1 DER encoding. This vulnerablity may accept a wrong ASN.1 DER encoded ECDSA signature such as:\n\n- wrong multi-byte ASN.1 length of TLV (ex. 0x820045 even though 0x45 is correct)\n- prepending zeros with ASN.1 INTEGER value (ex. 0x00000123 even though 0x0123 is correct)\n- appending zeros to signature of ASN.1 TLV (ex. 0x3082....1fbc000000 even though 0x3082....1fbc, appending zeros are ignored.)\n\nThis vulnerability was fixed by strict ASN.1 DER checking. \n\nHere is an assessment of this vulnerability:\n\n- If you are not use ECDSA signature validation, this vulnerability is not affected.\n- Not ASN.1 format signature like just concatenation of R and S value is not affected such as Bitcoin.\n- This vulnerability is affected to all ECC curve parameters.\n- Risk to accept a forged or crafted message to be signed is low.\n- Risk to raise memory corruption is low since jsrsasign uses BigInteger class.\n- ECDSA signatures semantically the same to valid one may be accepted as valid. There are many malleable variants.\n\nAs discussed [here](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/24862/ber-or-der-x9-62-for-ecdsa-signature), there is no standards like X9.62 which requires ASN.1 DER. So ASN.1 BER can be applied to ECDSA however most of implementations like OpenSSL do strict ASN.1 DER checking.\n\n### Patches\nUsers using ECDSA signature validation should upgrade to 8.0.19.\n\n### Workarounds\nDo strict ASN.1 DER checking for ASN.1 encoded ECDSA signature value.\n\n### References\nhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-14966\nhttps://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2020-14966\nhttps://vuldb.com/?id.157123\nhttps://github.com/kjur/jsrsasign/issues/437\nhttps://kjur.github.io/jsrsasign/api/symbols/KJUR.crypto.ECDSA.html\nhttps://kjur.github.io/jsrsasign/api/symbols/ASN1HEX.html#.checkStrictDER\nhttps://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.690\n\n",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "npm",
      "name" : "jsrsasign"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "4.0.0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "8.0.19"
      } ]
    } ]
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/kjur/jsrsasign/security/advisories/GHSA-p8c3-7rj8-q963"
  }, {
    "type" : "ADVISORY",
    "url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-14966"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/kjur/jsrsasign/issues/437"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/kjur/jsrsasign/commit/6087412d072a57074d3c4c1b40bdde0460d53a7f"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2020-14966"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/kjur/jsrsasign"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/kjur/jsrsasign/releases/tag/8.0.17"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/kjur/jsrsasign/releases/tag/8.0.18"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://kjur.github.io/jsrsasign"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://kjur.github.io/jsrsasign/api/symbols/ASN1HEX.html#.checkStrictDER"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://kjur.github.io/jsrsasign/api/symbols/KJUR.crypto.ECDSA.html"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20200724-0001"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://vuldb.com/?id.157123"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://www.npmjs.com/package/jsrsasign"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-347" ],
    "severity" : "HIGH",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2020-06-26T16:54:00Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : "2020-06-22T12:15:00Z"
  }
}