GHSA-78h2-9frx-2jm8

    Dashboard / Vulnerabilities / GHSA-78h2-9frx-2jm8

    GHSA-78h2-9frx-2jm8

    Published: 3 Apr 2026Last Modified: 10 Sept 2026

    Summary: Go JOSE Panics in JWE decryption

    Details: ### Impact Decrypting a JSON Web Encryption (JWE) object will panic if the `alg` field indicates a key wrapping algorithm ([one ending in `KW`](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/go-jose/go-jose/v4#pkg-constants), with the exception of `A128GCMKW`, `A192GCMKW`, and `A256GCMKW`) and the `encrypted_key` field is empty. The panic happens when `cipher.KeyUnwrap()` in `key_wrap.go` attempts to allocate a slice with a zero or negative length based on the length of the `encrypted_key`. This code path is reachable from `ParseEncrypted()` / `ParseEncryptedJSON()` / `ParseEncryptedCompact()` followed by `Decrypt()` on the resulting object. Note that the parse functions take a list of accepted key algorithms. If the accepted key algorithms do not include any key wrapping algorithms, parsing will fail and the application will be unaffected. This panic is also reachable by calling `cipher.KeyUnwrap()` directly with any `ciphertext` parameter less than 16 bytes long, but calling this function directly is less common. Panics can lead to denial of service. ### Fixed In 4.1.4 and v3.0.5 ### Workarounds If the list of `keyAlgorithms` passed to `ParseEncrypted()` / `ParseEncryptedJSON()` / `ParseEncryptedCompact()` does not include key wrapping algorithms (those ending in `KW`), your application is unaffected. If your application uses key wrapping, you can prevalidate to the JWE objects to ensure the `encrypted_key` field is nonempty. If your application accepts JWE Compact Serialization, apply that validation to the corresponding field of that serialization (the data between the first and second `.`). ### Thanks Thanks to Datadog's Security team for finding this issue.

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name: github.com/go-jose/go-jose/v4

    Purl: pkg:golang/github.com/go-jose/go-jose/v4

    Affected ranges

    Type: SEMVER

    Events:

    Introduced- 0
    Fixed -4.1.4

    Affected versions

    Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    Attack Vector
    Network
    Adjacent
    Local
    Physical
    Privileges Required
    None
    Low
    High
    User Interaction
    None
    Required
    Scope
    Unchanged
    Changed
    Confidentiality
    None
    Low
    High
    Integrity
    None
    Low
    High
    Availability
    None
    Low
    High