GHSA-5q2r-92f9-4m49
HIGHImproper verification of signature threshold in tough
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
Blast Radius
toughReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
The tough library, prior to 0.7.1, does not properly verify the uniqueness of keys in the signatures provided to meet the threshold of cryptographic signatures. It allows someone with access to a valid signing key to create multiple valid signatures in order to circumvent TUF requiring a minimum threshold of unique keys before the metadata is considered valid.
AWS would like to thank Erick Tryzelaar of the Google Fuchsia Team for reporting this issue.
Patches
A fix is available in version 0.7.1.
Workarounds
No workarounds to this issue are known.
References
CVE-2020-6174 is assigned to the same issue in the TUF reference implementation.
https://github.com/theupdateframework/tuf/pull/974 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-6174
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, contact AWS Security at [email protected].
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | tough | all versions | 0.7.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for tough. 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 tough to 0.7.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-5q2r-92f9-4m49 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 GHSA-5q2r-92f9-4m49 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 GHSA-5q2r-92f9-4m49. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-5q2r-92f9-4m49 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-5q2r-92f9-4m49 across crates.io dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.