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HighPublic exploit

ASN.1 Validator Desynchronization in node-forge

IdentifiersCVE-2025-12816CWE-436· Interpretation Conflict

CVE-2025-12816 is a high-severity interpretation-conflict vulnerability in node-forge affecting versions 1.3.1 and earlier. The flaw is in the library’s ASN.1 validation/parsing behavior, including the asn1.validate logic used in cryptographic object handling. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can craft malformed ASN.1 structures that cause schema validation to become desynchronized from the semantics of the parsed data. As a result, data can appear to satisfy validation checks while being cryptographically incorrect or structurally inconsistent. Reported examples indicate this can affect downstream verification flows such as PKCS#12 MAC/signature-related processing, allowing malformed inputs to pass checks that applications expect node-forge to enforce.

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ANALYST BRIEF

Impact, mitigation & remediation

What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.

Impact

What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.

Successful exploitation can cause downstream cryptographic verifications and security decisions to be bypassed. Depending on application usage, this may enable signature or MAC verification bypass, authentication bypass, acceptance of tampered signed data, misuse of certificate- or PKI-related functions, and broader integrity failures in systems that rely on node-forge ASN.1 validation as a trust boundary. Available reporting emphasizes integrity and authenticity impact rather than direct code execution or denial of service.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

If immediate upgrade is not possible, reduce exposure by rejecting or tightly constraining untrusted ASN.1/DER inputs before they reach node-forge, especially in PKCS#12, certificate, and signed-object processing paths. Add compensating validation using independent cryptographic/tooling stacks where feasible, and increase monitoring for anomalous verification successes or tampered signed objects. These are temporary risk-reduction measures only; patching is the primary mitigation.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Upgrade node-forge to version 1.3.2 or later, which includes the fix for CVE-2025-12816. The available context indicates the vendor released node-forge 1.3.2 specifically to address this issue along with related ASN.1 security flaws. Redeploy applications with the updated dependency and review any code paths that rely on node-forge ASN.1 validation for PKCS#12, X.509, signature, or other cryptographic trust decisions.
PUBLIC EXPLOITS

Exploits

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VALID 0 / 0 TOTALView more in app

No public exploit code observed for this vulnerability.

EXPOSURE SURFACE

Affected products & vendors

Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.

VendorProductType
Digital BazaarForgeapplication
Digital BazaarNode-Forgeapplication
node-forgeNode-Forgeapplication

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Threat actor evidence

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Associated malware

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Detection signatures

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Social activity14

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