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.
Metrics
Affected Vendors & Products
References
History
Mon, 26 Oct 2026 20:00:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | |
| Title | Weak PBKDF2 parameters for password-encrypted private-key export in jose | |
| First Time appeared |
Potatosalad
Potatosalad jose |
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| Weaknesses | CWE-916 | |
| CPEs | cpe:2.3:a:potatosalad:jose:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | |
| Vendors & Products |
Potatosalad
Potatosalad jose |
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| References |
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| Metrics |
cvssV4_0
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Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: EEF
Published: 2026-10-26T19:53:35.646Z
Updated: 2026-11-02T21:30:09.201Z
Reserved: 2026-07-22T13:58:26.233Z
Link: CVE-2026-65629
No data.
Status : Deferred
Published: 2026-10-26T20:17:58.647
Modified: 2026-10-27T15:00:49.240
Link: CVE-2026-65629
No data.