Vulnerability · Published Feb 11, 2025 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2025-24976Distribution's token authentication allows attacker to inject an untrusted signing key in a JWT
Medium 6.6
In plain English
A medium-severity authorization bypass via user-controlled key in distribution from distribution. Proof-of-concept exploit code is public. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.4% (higher than 29% of all known vulnerabilities).
Official description
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.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Go | github.com/distribution/distribution | no fix listed | GO-2025-3460 |
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| distribution | distribution | >= 3.0.0-beta.1, <= 3.0.0-rc.2 |
Weakness: CWE-639 · Vector: 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