Flowise: Weak Default JWT SecretsGHSA-cc4f-hjpj-g9p8
MEDIUMGHSA-cc4f-hjpj-g9p8 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.6) CWE-321 vulnerability in flowise. A fix is available for flowise — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-cc4f-hjpj-g9p8.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
flowisenpmDescription
Detection Method: Kolega.dev Deep Code Scan
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Severity | Critical |
| Location | packages/server/src/enterprise/middleware/passport/index.ts:29-34 |
| Practical Exploitability | High |
| Developer Approver | [email protected] |
Description
JWT secrets have weak hardcoded defaults ('auth_token', 'refresh_token', 'AUDIENCE', 'ISSUER'). Attackers can forge valid JWTs and impersonate any user.
Affected Code
const jwtAudience = process.env.JWT_AUDIENCE || 'AUDIENCE'
const jwtIssuer = process.env.JWT_ISSUER || 'ISSUER'
const jwtAuthTokenSecret = process.env.JWT_AUTH_TOKEN_SECRET || 'auth_token'
const jwtRefreshSecret = process.env.JWT_REFRESH_TOKEN_SECRET || process.env.JWT_AUTH_TOKEN_SECRET || 'refresh_token'
Evidence
All JWT defaults are weak strings. Refresh token falls back to auth token which is a design flaw. If any environment variable is unset, weak default is used.
Impact
Complete authentication bypass. Attackers can forge valid JWTs for any user account. No authentication required to access protected endpoints. Can escalate to admin access.
Recommendation
Remove all default secrets - require all JWT environment variables to be explicitly set. Add startup validation throwing error if any JWT secret is missing. Use cryptographically random secrets (256+ bits) for each secret independently. Implement JWT secret rotation mechanism.
Notes
The JWT secrets have genuinely weak hardcoded defaults ('auth_token', 'refresh_token', 'AUDIENCE', 'ISSUER') at lines 29-34. If an administrator deploys without setting the environment variables JWT_AUTH_TOKEN_SECRET, JWT_REFRESH_TOKEN_SECRET, JWT_AUDIENCE, and JWT_ISSUER, the application will use these trivially guessable values. An attacker knowing these defaults (which are publicly visible in the source code) can forge valid JWTs to impersonate any user, including administrators. The fallback chain at line 34 where jwtRefreshSecret falls back to jwtAuthTokenSecret is an additional design weakness - if only JWT_AUTH_TOKEN_SECRET is set, both tokens share the same secret. While .env.example files provide placeholder values, these are also weak and publicly visible. The application should fail to start if these secrets are not explicitly configured with strong values, rather than silently falling back to insecure defaults.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | flowise | all versions | 3.1.0npm install flowise@3.1.0 |
Affected Products
flowiseflowiseaiDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for flowise, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update flowise to 3.1.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-cc4f-hjpj-g9p8 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Put an independent control in front of the weakness: restrict the affected endpoint or interface to trusted networks, require an additional authentication factor or proxy-level check, and invalidate existing sessions and credentials in case the flaw has already been used.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-cc4f-hjpj-g9p8 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.