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Fencer Intel
medium 5.9

CVE-2026-65630 json

Timing side-channel in pure-Erlang X25519 scalar multiplication leaks the private key in jose

published 16d ago modified 9d ago also EEF-CVE-2026-65630 , EUVD-2026-110311 , GHSA-xvr2-gggj-h2pp

cvss
5.9
version 4.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 3%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Observable Timing Discrepancy vulnerability in potatosalad jose allows recovery of a long-term X25519 private key through a timing side channel in the pure-Erlang Curve25519 fallback.

The pure-Erlang X25519 implementation performs scalar multiplication over the secret private key using a recursive Montgomery ladder (jose_jwa_x25519:curve25519/2) whose clauses branch on individual bits of the clamped private scalar, and whose per-step operations (jose_jwa_x25519:montgomery_add/3 and jose_jwa_x25519:montgomery_double/1) and field inversion are built from value-dependent Erlang bignum arithmetic (multiplication, remainder, and modular exponentiation). Although the ladder is operation-count balanced and fixed at 254 steps, the concrete integer values processed at each step, and therefore the running time, depend on the secret scalar. The execution time of the public entry points jose_jwa_x25519:scalarmult/2, jose_jwa_x25519:x25519/2, jose_jwa_x25519:x25519_base/1, and jose_jwa_x25519:sk_to_pk/1 is thus a function of the private key.

This path is reachable from the public API, most notably when a service decrypts attacker-supplied ECDH-ES (JWE) messages with a long-term X25519 key (for example through JOSE.JWK.box_decrypt_ecdh_es/2, which reaches jose_jwa_curve25519:x25519_shared_secret/2 and the ladder). An attacker who can submit ciphertexts and measure decryption timing can, in principle, recover the private key bit by bit, defeating the resistance X25519 was designed to provide. Recovery of the key compromises the confidentiality and authenticity of all data protected by it.

This issue affects jose: from 1.10.0 before 1.11.13.

Patch / fix

  • hex jose 1.11.13
  • potatosalad jose 1.11.13
  • erlang-jose Debian 14 1.11.13-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-65630

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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-2026-65630 updated cvss 5.9

jose: jose: Information disclosure via X25519 timing side channel

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    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
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
9d ago

Exploit prediction

0.14% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 3% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/potatosalad/erlang-jose/security/advisories/GHSA-xvr2-gggj-h2pp referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 5.9 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 4.0 5.9 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/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
hex jose
>=1.10.0, <1.11.13
1.11.13

Affected products

  • potatosalad jose

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-208 Observable Timing Discrepancy

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.

The maintainers of potatosalad/erlang-jose published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.

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