Summary

CVE-2025-12816 has been reserved by CERT/CC

Description An Interpretation Conflict (CWE-436) vulnerability in node-forge versions 1.3.1 and below enables remote, unauthenticated attackers to craft ASN.1 structures to desynchronize schema validations, yielding a semantic divergence that may bypass downstream cryptographic verifications and security decisions.

Details

A critical ASN.1 validation bypass vulnerability exists in the node-forge asn1.validate function within forge/lib/asn1.js. ASN.1 is a schema language that defines data structures, like the typed record schemas used in X.509, PKCS#7, PKCS#12, etc. DER (Distinguished Encoding Rules), a strict binary encoding of ASN.1, is what cryptographic code expects when verifying signatures, and the exact bytes and structure must match the schema used to compute and verify the signature. After deserializing DER, Forge uses static ASN.1 validation schemas to locate the signed data or public key, compute digests over the exact bytes required, and feed digest and signature fields into cryptographic primitives.

This vulnerability allows a specially crafted ASN.1 object to desynchronize the validator on optional boundaries, causing a malformed optional field to be semantically reinterpreted as the subsequent mandatory structure. This manifests as logic bypasses in cryptographic algorithms and protocols with optional security features (such as PKCS#12, where MACs are treated as absent) and semantic interpretation conflicts in strict protocols (such as X.509, where fields are read as the wrong type).

Impact

This flaw allows an attacker to desynchronize the validator, allowing critical components like digital signatures or integrity checks to be skipped or validated against attacker-controlled data.

This vulnerability impacts the ans1.validate function in node-forge before patched version 1.3.2. https://github.com/digitalbazaar/forge/blob/main/lib/asn1.js.

The following components in node-forge are impacted. lib/asn1.js lib/x509.js lib/pkcs12.js lib/pkcs7.js lib/rsa.js lib/pbe.js lib/ed25519.js

Any downstream application using these components is impacted.

These components may be leveraged by downstream applications in ways that enable full compromise of integrity, leading to potential availability and confidentiality compromises.

When a virtual server is enabled with VLAN group and SNAT listener is configured, undisclosed traffic can cause the Traffic Management Microkernel (TMM) to terminate.

When an SSL Client Certificate LDAP or Certificate Revocation List Distribution Point (CRLDP) authentication profile is configured on a virtual server, undisclosed requests can cause an increase in CPU resource utilization.

When HTTP/2 is configured on BIG-IP or BIG-IP Next SPK systems, undisclosed responses can cause the Traffic Management Microkernel (TMM) to terminate.

When BIG-IP is deployed in high availability (HA) and an iControl REST API token is updated, the change does not sync to the peer device.

Validating the order of the public keys in the Diffie-Hellman Key Agreement Protocol, when an approved safe prime is used, allows remote attackers (from the client side) to trigger unnecessarily expensive server-side DHE modular-exponentiation calculations. The client may cause asymmetric resource consumption. The basic attack scenario is that the client must claim that it can only communicate with DHE, and the server must be configured to allow DHE and validate the order of the public key.

In the GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) before 2.28, parseregexp in posix/regcomp.c misparses alternatives, which allows attackers to cause a denial of service (assertion failure and application exit) or trigger an incorrect result by attempting a regular-expression match.

An interpretation-conflict (CWE-436) vulnerability in node-forge versions 1.3.1 and earlier enables unauthenticated attackers to craft ASN.1 structures to desynchronize schema validations, yielding a semantic divergence that may bypass downstream cryptographic verifications and security decisions.

Validating the order of the public keys in the Diffie-Hellman Key Agreement Protocol, when an approved safe prime is used, allows remote attackers (from the client side) to trigger unnecessarily expensive server-side DHE modular-exponentiation calculations. The client may cause asymmetric resource consumption. The basic attack scenario is that the client must claim that it can only communicate with DHE, and the server must be configured to allow DHE and validate the order of the public key.

A use-after-free vulnerability was found in libarchive in RAR decoder. A crafted archive could cause the application to crash.

Upstream issue:

https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/pull/1105

Upstream patch:

https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/commit/bfcfe6f04ed20db2504db8a254d1f40a1d84eb28

A double free vulnerability was found in libarchive in RAR decoder. A crafted archive could cause the application to crash.

Upstream issue:

https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/pull/1105

Upstream patch:

https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/pull/1105/commits/021efa522ad729ff0f5806c4ce53e4a6cc1daa31