CVE-2026-119186: Forge: AES-GCM authentication bypass via unvalidated tagLength option
Vulnerability summary
CVE-2026-119186 is a medium (CVSS 5.9) vulnerability in digitalbazaar forge. EPSS estimates a 0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 10.7% of scored vulnerabilities.
Not severe (CVSS 5.9, network access); no exploitation reported by the 5 checked sources
Source freshness unavailable
How is this decided?Timeline
- 29-10-2026PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
- 29-10-2026Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.
Description
Forge (also called node-forge) is a native implementation of Transport Layer Security in JavaScript. Prior to 1.4.1, node-forge did not validate the AES-GCM tagLength option passed to start() during decryption through forge.cipher.createDecipher(). When an application derived tagLength from received data or used an unset or zero-like configuration value, a value that converted to zero together with an empty or missing authentication tag caused the calculated and supplied tags to compare as empty, so decipher.finish() accepted unauthenticated ciphertext. Applications that omit tagLength to use the 128-bit default or pass a fixed valid tag length are unaffected. This issue is fixed in version 1.4.1.
CVSS metrics
6 scores · 6 sources · 1 version- NVDNIST5.9MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
- OSV · NpmEcosystem advisory · calculated5.9MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
- OSV · UbuntuEcosystem advisory · calculated5.9MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
- OSV · ChainguardEcosystem advisory · calculated5.9MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
- OSV · WolfiEcosystem advisory · calculated5.9MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
EPSS trend
Probability
0.21%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days
Percentile
11%
Versus all other CVEs
30-day change
Change unavailable
Change unavailable
Known exploited
Compare KEV catalogs
CISA KEVNot in the CISA KEV catalog.
ENISA CNWNot in the ENISA CNW catalog.
CIRCLNot in the CIRCL catalog.
Public exploits
0 foundNo public exploits indexed.
Weaknesses
CWE · root cause- CWE-354Improper Validation of Integrity Check ValueThe product does not validate or incorrectly validates the integrity check values or "checksums" of a message.
- CWE-1284Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in InputThe product receives input that is expected to specify a quantity (such as size or length), but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the quantity has the required properties.
Affected systems
Known conditions: network-reachable, no authentication, no user interaction (CVSS vector). Other conditions: not stated in public data.
Chainguard20 products
- arangodb-3.11All versions (No fix recorded) | < 3.11.14.6-r4
- arangodb-3.12All versions (No fix recorded) | < 3.12.13-r1
- dotstatsuite-supercoreAll versions (No fix recorded) | < 3.1.0_git20261022-r4
- gitlab-rails-ce-18.10All versions (No fix recorded)
- gitlab-rails-ce-18.8All versions (No fix recorded)
Wolfi2 products
- jitsucom-jitsu-console< 2.11.0-r42
- kubeflow-centraldashboardAll versions (No fix recorded) | < 2.0.0-r8
Digitalbazaar1 product
- forge< 1.4.1
Npm1 product
- node-forge< 1.4.1
Ubuntu1 product
- node-node-forgeAll versions (No fix recorded)
5 vendors · 25 products
References
8 links- github.com/digitalbazaar/forge/security/advisories/GHSA-5cwg-6vw7-rj6pX Refsource CONFIRMWEBREPORTAdvisory
- github.com/digitalbazaar/forge/commit/236845d96c71207259f91638d0138bba8e2fd624X Refsource MISCWEBREPORTFIX
