CVE-2023-46129
NATS.io is a high performance open source pub-sub distributed communication technology, built for the cloud, on-premise, IoT, and edge computing.
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.37%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
NATS.io is a high performance open source pub-sub distributed communication technology, built for the cloud, on-premise, IoT, and edge computing. The cryptographic key handling library, nkeys, recently gained support for encryption, not just for signing/authentication. This is used in nats-server 2.10 (Sep 2023) and newer for authentication callouts. In nkeys versions 0.4.0 through 0.4.5, corresponding with NATS server versions 2.10.0 through 2.10.3, the nkeys library's `xkeys` encryption handling logic mistakenly passed an array by value into an internal function, where the function mutated that buffer to populate the encryption key to use. As a result, all encryption was actually to an all-zeros key. This affects encryption only, not signing. FIXME: FILL IN IMPACT ON NATS-SERVER AUTH CALLOUT SECURITY. nkeys Go library 0.4.6, corresponding with NATS Server 2.10.4, has a patch for this issue. No known workarounds are available. For any application handling auth callouts in Go, if using the nkeys library, update the dependency, recompile and deploy that in lockstep.
- CVSS 3.1
- 7.5 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
- EPSS
- 0.37% probability · 31th percentile
- Public exploits
- None in Exploit-DB
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-321, CWE-325
- Affected
- linuxfoundation/nats-server · nats/nkeys
- Source
- security-advisories@github.com
EPSS 0.4% since 26 October 2026; no change recorded yet. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.
References
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/10/31/1Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://github.com/nats-io/nkeys/security/advisories/GHSA-mr45-rx8q-wcm9Vendor Advisory
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/R3UETKPUB3V5JS5TLZOF3SMTGT5K5APS/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/ULQQONMSCQSH5Z5OWFFQHCGEZ3NL4DRJ/
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/10/31/1Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://github.com/nats-io/nkeys/security/advisories/GHSA-mr45-rx8q-wcm9Vendor Advisory
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/R3UETKPUB3V5JS5TLZOF3SMTGT5K5APS/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/ULQQONMSCQSH5Z5OWFFQHCGEZ3NL4DRJ/
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.