GHSA-c7p4-hx26-pr73
CRITICALJWE is missing AES-GCM authentication tag validation in encrypted JWE
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
jweReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects RubyGems packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Overview
The authentication tag of encrypted JWEs can be brute forced, which may result in loss of confidentiality for those JWEs and provide ways to craft arbitrary JWEs.
Impact
- JWEs can be modified to decrypt to an arbitrary value
- JWEs can be decrypted by observing parsing differences
- The GCM internal GHASH key can be recovered
Am I Affected?
You are affected by this vulnerability even if you do not use an AES-GCM encryption algorithm for your JWEs.
Patches
The version 1.1.1 fixes the issue by adding the tag length check for the AES-GCM algorithm.
Important: As the GHASH key could have leaked, you must rotate the encryption keys after upgrading to version 1.1.1.
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | jwe | all versions | 1.1.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for jwe. 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 jwe to 1.1.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-c7p4-hx26-pr73 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-c7p4-hx26-pr73 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-c7p4-hx26-pr73. 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-c7p4-hx26-pr73 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-c7p4-hx26-pr73 across RubyGems dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.