CVE-2026-21713

medium

Description

A flaw in Node.js HMAC verification uses a non-constant-time comparison when validating user-provided signatures, potentially leaking timing information proportional to the number of matching bytes. Under certain threat models where high-resolution timing measurements are possible, this behavior could be exploited as a timing oracle to infer HMAC values. Node.js already provides timing-safe comparison primitives used elsewhere in the codebase, indicating this is an oversight rather than an intentional design decision. Thank you, to x_probe for reporting this vulnerability and thank you panva for fixing it.

Details

Source: Mitre, NVD

Published: 2026-03-24

Risk Information

CVSS v2

Base Score: 4.3

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

Severity: Medium

CVSS v3

Base Score: 5.9

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Severity: Medium