CVE-2024-28176 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.9) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in jose. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2024-28176 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
jose vulnerable to resource exhaustion via specifically crafted JWE with compressed plaintext
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, a proxy for how much of the ecosystem is exposed.
josenpmjose-node-cjs-runtimenpmjose-node-esm-runtimenpmDescription
jose is JavaScript module for JSON Object Signing and Encryption, providing support for JSON Web Tokens (JWT), JSON Web Signature (JWS), JSON Web Encryption (JWE), JSON Web Key (JWK), JSON Web Key Set (JWKS), and more. A vulnerability has been identified in the JSON Web Encryption (JWE) decryption interfaces, specifically related to the support for decompressing plaintext after its decryption. Under certain conditions it is possible to have the user's environment consume unreasonable amount of CPU time or memory during JWE Decryption operations. This issue has been patched in versions 2.0.7 and 4.15.5.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | jose | ≥ 3.0.0&&< 4.15.5 | 4.15.5 |
| 📦npm | jose-node-cjs-runtime | all versions | 4.15.5 |
| 📦npm | jose-node-esm-runtime | all versions | 4.15.5 |
| 📦npm | jose | all versions | 2.0.7 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for jose. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update jose to 4.15.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-28176 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2024-28176 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2024-28176. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-28176 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2024-28176 across npm dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.