Signature Verification Bypass Vulnerability in node-forge (CVE-2025-12816)
A critical vulnerability (CVE-2025-12816) was discovered in the popular JavaScript cryptography library node-forge, which is downloaded over 20 million times per week. The flaw allows attackers to bypass signature verification by exploiting an interpretation-conflict in the library's ASN.1 validation mechanism, enabling malformed data to pass as valid even when cryptographically invalid. This vulnerability could allow unauthenticated attackers to craft ASN.1 structures that desynchronize schema validations, potentially bypassing cryptographic verifications and security decisions in applications relying on node-forge.
The issue was responsibly disclosed by a researcher from Palo Alto Networks, and a fix was released in version 1.3.2 of node-forge. Security advisories from CERT-CC warn that the impact varies by application, but may include authentication bypass, signed data tampering, and misuse of certificate-related functions. Developers using node-forge are strongly advised to update to the latest version immediately to mitigate the risk, as the vulnerability could have significant consequences in environments where cryptographic verification is central to trust decisions.
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How this story unfolded
4 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
Google security research repo updates dependency to node-forge 1.3.2
A pull request in Google's security research repository updated a frontend component from node-forge 1.3.1 to 1.3.2, reflecting downstream adoption of the patched version. This indicates maintainers began remediating exposure after the fix became available.
Public disclosure details CVE-2025-12816 impact and exploitation method
Public reporting described how malformed ASN.1 input can desynchronize validation and downstream processing, allowing signature verification bypass in applications using node-forge. Coverage highlighted the library's broad adoption, with roughly 21 to 26 million weekly downloads, increasing the potential impact.
node-forge 1.3.2 released to fix CVE-2025-12816
A fix for the signature verification bypass issue was released in node-forge version 1.3.2. Developers were advised to upgrade from affected versions because the bug could enable authentication bypass, signed data tampering, and certificate-related misuse depending on application context.
Researcher discovers and reports node-forge signature bypass flaw
Hunter Wodzenski of Palo Alto Networks identified an ASN.1 interpretation-conflict vulnerability in node-forge that could let malformed data bypass signature verification, and responsibly disclosed it with a proof-of-concept. The flaw was tracked as CVE-2025-12816 and affects node-forge 1.3.1 and earlier.
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Bump node-forge from 1.3.1 to 1.3.2 in /analysis/kernel/dashboard/frontend
github.com
Open sourceCritical node-forge Flaw (CVE-2025-12816) Allows Signature Verification Bypass via ASN.1 Manipulation (21M Downloads/Week)
securityonline.info
Open sourcePopular Forge library gets fix for signature verification bypass flaw
bleepingcomputer.com
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