CVE-2026-44351
Prior to 6.2.4, a critical authentication-bypass vulnerability in fast-jwt's async key-resolver flow allows any unauthenticated attacker to forge arbitrary JWTs that are accepted as authentic.
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.24%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
fast-jwt provides fast JSON Web Token (JWT) implementation. Prior to 6.2.4, a critical authentication-bypass vulnerability in fast-jwt's async key-resolver flow allows any unauthenticated attacker to forge arbitrary JWTs that are accepted as authentic. When the application's key resolver returns an empty string (''), for example via the common keys[decoded.header.kid] || '' JWKS-style fallback, fast-jwt converts it to a zero-length Buffer, hands it to crypto.createSecretKey, derives allowedAlgorithms = ['HS256','HS384','HS512'] from it, and then verifies the token's signature against an empty-key HMAC. The attacker simply computes HMAC-SHA256(key='', input='${header}.${payload}'), which Node accepts without complaint — and the verifier returns the attacker-chosen payload (sub, admin, scopes, etc.) as authentic. This vulnerability is fixed in 6.2.4.
- CVSS 3.1
- 9.1 CRITICALCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
- EPSS
- 0.24% probability · 15th percentile
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-287, CWE-326, CWE-1391
- Source
- security-advisories@github.com
References
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.