---
id: CVE-2026-65632
title: >-
  ECDSA signature length is not validated in jose, allowing signature
  malleability
summary: >-
  The jose library accepts ECDSA (ES256, ES256K, ES384, and ES512) JWS
  signatures of a non-canonical length. When verifying an ECDSA signature,
  jose_jwk_kty_ec:verify/4 in src/jwk/jose_jwk_kty_ec.erl splits the raw
  signature in half by its…
severity: medium
cvss: 5.1
cvssVector: 'CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N'
cvssSource: cna
cwe:
  - CWE-347
vendor: potatosalad
product: jose
affected:
  - jose >= 1.0.0 < 1.11.13
  - >-
    potatosalad/erlang-jose >= a7746ecd4950f85a393136e449a91dac62b5c429 <
    72ce1866622b9329347dc52a94173ac0317bc9cf
published: '2026-10-26'
updated: '2026-10-26'
sourceUpdated: '2026-10-26T19:53:56.649Z'
source: CVEORG
sourceUrl: 'https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-65632'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/potatosalad/erlang-jose/security/advisories/GHSA-44hw-rpw9-mwg4
  - url: 'https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-65632.html'
    label: EEF CNA record for CVE-2026-65632
  - url: 'https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-65632'
    label: OSV record EEF-CVE-2026-65632
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/potatosalad/erlang-jose/commit/a7746ecd4950f85a393136e449a91dac62b5c429
    label: Introducing commit a7746ec in potatosalad/erlang-jose
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/potatosalad/erlang-jose/commit/72ce1866622b9329347dc52a94173ac0317bc9cf
    label: Fix commit 72ce186 in potatosalad/erlang-jose
tags:
  - cve.org
ingestedAt: '2026-10-26T20:39:42.625Z'
epss: 0.00092
epssPercentile: 0.00509
---

## Overview

The jose library accepts ECDSA (ES256, ES256K, ES384, and ES512) JWS signatures of a non-canonical length. When verifying an ECDSA signature, jose_jwk_kty_ec:verify/4 in src/jwk/jose_jwk_kty_ec.erl splits the raw signature in half by its actual byte length (split_binary(Signature, byte_size(Signature) div 2)) instead of enforcing the fixed length required by RFC 7518 §3.4, and then decodes each half with crypto:bytes_to_integer/1, which ignores leading zero bytes.

As a result, an attacker who holds one valid token can prepend leading zero bytes to each of the R and S halves to produce longer signatures that still split evenly and decode to the same (r, s) pair, so many distinct signature byte strings all verify against the same key (signature malleability). This does not allow forging new payloads or impersonating a signer, because the underlying (r, s) values are unchanged. It does defeat any security control that assumes a valid token or its signature is unique, such as token-revocation-by-hash, replay or idempotency caches, and deduplication logic.

This issue affects jose: from 1.0.0 before 1.11.13.

## Affected

- `jose >= 1.0.0 < 1.11.13`
- `potatosalad/erlang-jose >= a7746ecd4950f85a393136e449a91dac62b5c429 < 72ce1866622b9329347dc52a94173ac0317bc9cf`

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.