CVE-2020-14966: Jsrsasign ECDSA Signature Validation Vulnerability By Vulnerability
HIGHCVE-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
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).
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.
npm install jsrsasign@8.0.19
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
CVE-2020-14966 Affected Jsrsasign Versions
1 component(s)| 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?
Which Jsrsasign versions are affected?
What version fixes CVE-2020-14966?
Is jsrsasign affected?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2020-14966?
What CWE is associated with CVE-2020-14966?
How can I check npm dependencies for CVE-2020-14966?
Machine-readable OSV JSON
OSV v1.5 Schema
{
"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"
}
}