Service interruption via unbounded JWE delimiter splitting
Published Aug 27, 2026 · Updated Aug 27, 2026
Resource exhaustion in jwcrypto 1.5.8 and earlier allows remote attackers to interrupt services through malformed JWE tokens. JWE.deserialize() falls back from JSON parsing and splits the entire attacker-controlled string on period delimiters before checking for exactly five compact-JWE segments, allocating one list element per delimiter. Exposure requires an application to pass untrusted JWE text to the parser; demonstrated consequences are worker memory pressure and interruption, not data disclosure or modification.
Summary
What happened
Resource exhaustion in jwcrypto 1.5.8 and earlier allows remote attackers to interrupt services through malformed JWE tokens. JWE.deserialize() falls back from JSON parsing and splits the entire attacker-controlled string on period delimiters before checking for exactly five compact-JWE segments, allocating one list element per delimiter. Exposure requires an application to pass untrusted JWE text to the parser; demonstrated consequences are worker memory pressure and interruption, not data disclosure or modification.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-80179
- Published
- Aug 27, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 27, 2026
- Vendor
- 389 Directory Server
- Product
- Red Hat OpenShift AI
- Classifications
- CWE-770, T1499.004
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Aug 27, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 27, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Affected versions are unavailable in this record. Check the vendor advisory for version and patch details.
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- GHSA-96rv-c4vc-h4f4 memory-exhaustion reproductionproof of concept · demonstrated
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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