Vulnerability in Benmcollins Libjwt
CVE-2026-44699
LibJWT is a C JSON Web Token Library. From 3.0.0 to 3.3.2, libjwt accepts an RSA JWK that does not contain an alg parameter as the verification key for an HS256/HS384/HS512 token. In the OpenSSL backend, this causes HMAC verification to run with a zero-length key, so an attacker can forge a valid JWT without knowing any secret or RSA private key. This is an algorithm-confusion authentication bypass. It affects applications that load RSA keys from JWKS where alg is omitted, which is valid JWK syntax and common in real deployments, and then choose the verification algorithm from the JWT header, for example in a kid lookup callback. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.3.3.
Vulnerability class: POODLE (CVE-2014-3566)
Published · last modified .
EPSS exploit prediction
EPSS: 0.004 (26.3th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 26th percentile — 26.3% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.004 · change: +0.001
Affected products
- Benmcollins Libjwt — versions >= 3.0.0, < 3.3.3