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Fencer Intel
medium 6.6

CVE-2025-24976 json

Distribution's token authentication allows attacker to inject an untrusted signing key in a JWT

published last yr. modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2025-3999 , GHSA-phw4-mc57-4hwc , GO-2025-3460

cvss
6.6
version 4.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 29%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Distribution is a toolkit to pack, ship, store, and deliver container content. Systems running registry versions 3.0.0-beta.1 through 3.0.0-rc.2 with token authentication enabled may be vulnerable to an issue in which token authentication allows an attacker to inject an untrusted signing key in a JSON web token (JWT). The issue lies in how the JSON web key (JWK) verification is performed. When a JWT contains a JWK header without a certificate chain, the code only checks if the KeyID (`kid`) matches one of the trusted keys, but doesn't verify that the actual key material matches. A fix for the issue is available at commit 5ea9aa028db65ca5665f6af2c20ecf9dc34e5fcd and expected to be a part of version 3.0.0-rc.3. There is no way to work around this issue without patching if the system requires token authentication.

Patch / fix

  • distribution distribution 3.0.0-rc.3
  • distribution_project distribution 3.0.0-rc.3
  • govulncheck-vulndb openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.0.20250312T181707-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2025:14889-1

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2025-24976 updated cvss 6.5

distribution: Distribution's token authentication allows attacker to inject an untrusted signing key in a JWT

  • Red Hat Multiarch Tuning Operator multiarch-tuning-rhel9-operator
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat OpenShift API for Data Protection oadp/oadp-velero-plugin-rhel8
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat OpenShift Serverless openshift-gitops-1/gitops-rhel8-operator, openshift-serverless-1/serverless-ingress-rhel9, openshift-serverless-1/serverless-kn-operator-rhel9, openshift-serverless-1/serverless-must-gather-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2 rhacm2/multicluster-operators-subscription-rhel8
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift4/ose-console, openshift4/ose-docker-registry Red Hat OpenShift GitOps openshift-gitops-1/argocd-rhel8, openshift-gitops-argocd-rhel9-container
    affected: workaround, no fix available, no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Trusted Application Pipeline rhtap-cli-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix available
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.17 openshift4/ose-operator-registry-rhel9 v4.17.0-202503052005.p0.ge9262fe.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4/ose-operator-framework-tools-rhel9 v4.17.0-202503052005.p0.ge9262fe.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4/ose-operator-lifecycle-manager-rhel9 v4.17.0-202503052005.p0.ge9262fe.assembly.stream.el9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:2445
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.18 openshift4/ose-operator-registry-rhel9 v4.18.0-202503041603.p0.g877b6fd.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4/ose-operator-framework-tools-rhel9 v4.18.0-202503041603.p0.g877b6fd.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4/ose-operator-lifecycle-manager-rhel9 v4.18.0-202503041603.p0.g877b6fd.assembly.stream.el9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:2449
show 1 more
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 microshift, microshift-olm, microshift-sriov, microshift-multus, openshift-clients, microshift-selinux, +21 more Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.17 rhcos 417.94.202503060903-0, openshift4/ose-cli-rhel9 v4.17.0-202502280104.p0.g0000b3e.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4/ose-tests-rhel9 v4.17.0-202503050235.p0.g0525d4a.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4/ose-tools-rhel9 v4.17.0-202503050235.p0.g0000b3e.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4/ose-ironic-rhel9 v4.17.0-202503060831.p0.g26d66a3.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4/ose-console-rhel9 v4.17.0-202503060136.p0.g8c073f0.assembly.stream.el9, +31 more Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.18 rhcos 418.94.202503061016-0, openshift4/ose-etcd-rhel9 v4.18.0-202502262002.p0.gafac40f.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4/ose-tests-rhel9 v4.18.0-202503050303.p0.gc89253a.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4/ose-tools-rhel9 v4.18.0-202503050303.p0.geb9bc9b.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4/ose-ironic-rhel9 v4.18.0-202503061003.p0.gb288ebe.assembly.stream.el9, openshift4/ose-console-rhel9 v4.18.0-202503051833.p0.g87e68aa.assembly.stream.el9, +33 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
last yr.

Exploit prediction

0.35% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 29% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 6.6 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U
CNA 4.0 6.6 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go github.com/distribution/distribution
all versions
 no fix listed

Affected products

  • distribution distribution

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-639 Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.