Forge AES-GCM decryption accepts unauthenticated data via tagLength
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- High
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · High · None
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 19 without a fix
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA, GitHub and Red Hat.
Summary
Forge (node-forge) before 1.4.1 does not validate the AES-GCM tagLength option passed to start() during decryption. When an application derives tagLength from received data or uses a zero-like value with an empty or missing tag, decipher.finish() accepts unauthenticated ciphertext (CWE-354). An unauthenticated remote attacker who can supply ciphertext to such an application can get it accepted, with high attack complexity.
Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-06
Description from the CNA
Forge (also called node-forge) is a native implementation of Transport Layer Security in JavaScript. Prior to 1.4.1, node-forge did not validate the AES-GCM tagLength option passed to start() during decryption through forge.cipher.createDecipher(). When an application derived tagLength from received data or used an unset or zero-like configuration value, a value that converted to zero together with an empty or missing authentication tag caused the calculated and supplied tags to compare as empty, so decipher.finish() accepted unauthenticated ciphertext. Applications that omit tagLength to use the 128-bit default or pass a fixed valid tag length are unaffected. This issue is fixed in version 1.4.1.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- Poc
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| digitalbazaar | forge | before 1.4.1 | 1.4.1 | Patch available | CNA |
| — | node-forge (npm) | before 1.4.1 | 1.4.1 | Patch available | GHSA-5cwg-6vw7-rj6p |
- forge Vendordigitalbazaar Affected before 1.4.1 Fixed in 1.4.1 Patch available CNA
- node-forge (npm) Vendor— Affected before 1.4.1 Fixed in 1.4.1 Patch available GHSA-5cwg-6vw7-rj6p
CPE names Threatist (inferred) · 1
Inferred from how NVD named this product before; not given by a source.
| CPE | Versions | Role | Vendor |
|---|---|---|---|
| cpe:2.3:a:digitalbazaar:forge:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | — | — | digitalbazaar |
- cpe:2.3:a:digitalbazaar:forge:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions — — ·digitalbazaar
Remediation
Upgrade the digitalbazaar forge package and the node-forge npm package to version 1.4.1. Red Hat lists these products as affected without a fix, with no fix planned for Node HealthCheck Operator, OpenShift Service Mesh 3, Red Hat Ceph Storage 4 and Red Hat Fuse 7. Red Hat lists the plan as none available for OpenShift Pipelines, OpenShift Serverless, Red Hat AMQ Broker 7, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2, Red Hat Build of Podman Desktop, Red Hat Connectivity Link 1, Red Hat Developer Hub 1, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, 9 and 10, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI (RHEL AI) 3.
Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-06
- Fix · CNA forge (digitalbazaar) Fixed in 1.4.1
- Fix · GHSA-5cwg-6vw7-rj6p node-forge (npm) Fixed in 1.4.1 Advisory →
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Node HealthCheck Operator | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| OpenShift Pipelines | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| OpenShift Serverless | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| OpenShift Service Mesh 3 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat AMQ Broker 7 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Build of Podman Desktop | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Ceph Storage 4 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat Connectivity Link 1 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Developer Hub 1 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI (RHEL AI) 3 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Fuse 7 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Quay 3 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat build of Apache Camel for Spring Boot 4 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Self-service automation portal 2 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
Not affected: 1 product
- Red Hat Hardened Images
Timeline
- 2026-10-29 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-119186
- 2026-10-29 CISA SSVC decision points changed
- 2026-10-30 Alias added: GHSA-5cwg-6vw7-rj6p
- 2026-10-30 Fix available: npm/[email protected] · GHSA-5cwg-6vw7-rj6p
- 2026-10-30 CVSS score added · GHSA-5cwg-6vw7-rj6p
- 2026-10-30 Weakness changed · GHSA-5cwg-6vw7-rj6p
- 2026-10-30 5 new references · GHSA-5cwg-6vw7-rj6p
- 2026-11-06 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
- 2026-11-06 CVSS score added · Red Hat
References
More digitalbazaar vulnerabilities
- TI-2026-58601 node-forge through 1.4.0 RSA PKCS#1 v1.5 Signature Forgery via Nested DigestAlgorithm Padding CVSS 4.0HIGH 8.7
- TI-2026-26254 Forge has a basicConstraints bypass in its certificate chain verification (RFC 5280 violation) CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.1
- TI-2026-82739 ASN.1 resource exhaustion in Forge asn1.fromDer via BIT STRINGs CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-82735 Denial of service in Forge TLS record processing via stack exhaustion CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-82733 Forge accepts zero iteration count, enabling PKCS#12 integrity bypass CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-82730 Regular expression denial of service in Forge PEM decoding CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
Sources
- CVE-2026-119186 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-119186 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-5cwg-6vw7-rj6p · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-119186 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences