HighCVE-2026-119188

Digitalbazaar Forge: Uncaught Exception (CVE-2026-119188)

Published 29.10.2026Last modified 30.10.2026Sources: OSV, Hersteller, CVE.org

What is affected, what to do

Update Digitalbazaar Forge to version 1.4.1.

Affected: Digitalbazaar Forge lt *..1.4.1
Fixed in: Digitalbazaar Forge 1.4.1

Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

Metrics

7.5

Priority

XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3

7.5

CVSS v3

Severity High on the scale from 0 to 10.

Source: OSV, Hersteller, CVE.org

0.4 %

EPSS score

Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.

Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 35.4

Show all metrics

Severity: High
Priority (0–325) The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first? Read in glossary: 77.53 Methodology
Exploit maturity An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack. Read in glossary: no public PoC known
XIEM Effective CVSS XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command. Read in glossary: 7.5 Methodology
CVSS v3 CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions. Read in glossary: 7.5
EPSS score The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“. Read in glossary: 0.4 %; Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
EPSS percentile The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking. Read in glossary: 35.4; Elevated — this CVE ranks above at least 10% of all CVEs scored today.
KEV status The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching. Read in glossary: —
Published: 29.10.2026
CISA assessment (SSVC): Exploitation: none known · automatable · Technical impact: partial; Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 30 October 2026
CWE CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect. Read in glossary: CWE-248, CWE-476

Detection rules

No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

Classification under NIS2 and CRA

Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

NIS2 NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management. Read in glossary: High technical severity: assess and remediate the vulnerability in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2 and document the decision.
CRA The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates. Read in glossary: From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
ISO/IEC 27001 ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security. Read in glossary: Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

Description

Summary

A connection created with forge.tls.createConnection() throws an uncaught TypeError from process() when it receives a record of another content type while waiting for the rest of a handshake message that was split across records. A peer can trigger this with 18 bytes before the handshake, without authentication, which terminates Node.js processes that use the documented socket wiring. Fixed in node-forge 1.4.1.

Details

In lib/tls.js, _readRecord() handles a record that arrives while a handshake message split across records is incomplete. If the record has any other content type (change_cipher_spec, alert, application_data or heartbeat), forge correctly reports "Invalid fragmented record." through c.error() with a fatal unexpected_message alert. That fatal error closes and resets the connection, which sets c.record to null. _readRecord() then continues with c.record.ready = true and throws TypeError: Cannot set properties of null (setting 'ready') out of process(). The code is unchanged since the first release.

RFC 5246 section 6.2.1 allows a handshake message to be fragmented across records, and RFC 8446 section 5.1 forbids interleaving handshake messages with other record types. Failing the connection with unexpected_message is the intended behavior; the bug is the crash after the error.

node-forge reports TLS protocol errors through the error callback, so applications do not normally wrap process() in try/catch. When process() is called from a Node.js socket data handler, as in the documented usage, the exception is uncaught and terminates the process.

The fix returns from _readRecord() right after the fatal error. The connection is failed, the alert is sent and the error callback is called as before, and process() no longer throws.

Patches

Fixed in node-forge 1.4.1. The connection still fails with a fatal unexpected_message alert and the error callback, but process() no longer throws.

Workarounds

Wrap every call to connection.process() in try/catch. The connection has already been failed and closed when the exception is thrown, so the exception can be ignored or the socket destroyed.

Proof of concept

Input (server mode), two records, 18 bytes:

16 03 01 00 06 01 00 00 10 03 01 handshake record: ClientHello header announcing 16 bytes, 2 present 15 03 01 00 02 02 28 alert record

// c = forge.tls.createConnection({server: true, ...}) c.process(forge.util.hexToBytes('1603010006010000100301' + '15030100020228'));

On 1.4.0 the error callback receives "Invalid fragmented record.", then process() throws TypeError: Cannot set properties of null (setting 'ready'). A change_cipher_spec, application_data or heartbeat record in place of the alert has the same effect, and a client connection behaves the same with a fragment of a ServerHello. In a Node.js server that calls c.process(data.toString('binary')) from socket.on('data', ...), a client sending these 18 bytes terminates the server process. On 1.4.1 the connection fails with a fatal unexpected_message alert and process() returns normally.

Regression tests in tests/unit/tls.js, "fragmented handshake messages": each of the four other record types after a handshake fragment, in server and client mode, plus same-type continuation records that are still accepted.

Impact

Applications that use node-forge's TLS implementation: connections from forge.tls.createConnection(), including those created by forge.tls.wrapSocket() and the forge.http / forge.xhr TLS connections. Any peer that can connect to a forge TLS server, or any server a forge TLS client connects to, can send 18 bytes before the handshake, without authentication. In Node.js applications using the documented usage, the uncaught exception terminates the process, which drops every connection it serves, and the attacker can repeat it on every restart. There is no confidentiality or integrity impact.

Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities), GitHub Security Advisories, cvelistv5, NVD (NIST)

Affected products

The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

Affected products
		Affected versions	Fixed in
digitalbazaar	forge	`< 1.4.1`	`1.4.1`
npm	node-forge	`<= 1.4.0` `—`	`1.4.1` `1.4.1`

Vendors and products

Digitalbazaar Forge

Weakness classes (CWE)

CWE-248Uncaught Exception
Base
An exception is thrown from a function, but it is not caught.
Entry at MITRE CWE-248
CWE-476NULL Pointer Dereference
Base
The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.
Entry at MITRE CWE-476

References & sources

github.comdigitalbazaar/forge/commit/700d977d39f9f8f896c55b0763eebb940a2c…x_refsource_MISC, web
github.comdigitalbazaar/forge/releases/tag/v1.4.1x_refsource_MISC, web
github.comdigitalbazaar/forge/security/advisories/GHSA-8hrf-8g6f-7xwpx_refsource_CONFIRM, web
NVD (NIST)vuln/detail/CVE-2026-119188advisory
github.comdigitalbazaar/forgepackage

Changes to this CVE

Who changed this CVE and when: NVD (analysis, affected products, CVSS), the CVE publisher (CNA) and additional providers such as CISA (ADP).

30.10.2026Record modifiedCISA ADP

CISA assessment (SSVC): exploitation: none known, automatable: yes

Show the original change

Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
Type	Action	Before	After
SSVC assessment	added	—	{"id":"CVE-2026-119188","role":"CISA Coordinator","options":[{"exploitation":"none"},{"automatable":"yes"},{"technicalImpact":"partial"}],"version":"2.0.3","timestamp":"2026-10-30T15:47:07.746474Z"}

Source identifier: 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

29.10.2026ReceivedGitHub

CVSS V3.1: AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Weakness type: CWE-476, CWE-248

Description added or changed

New references:

Show 8 original changes

Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
Type	Action	Before	After
Description	added	—	Forge (also called node-forge) is a native implementation of Transport Layer Security in JavaScript. Prior to 1.4.1, the affected implementation used forge.tls.createConnection(), fragmented handshake message, interleaved record to process the relevant input or security decision. node-forge continued processing after a TLS record of another content type interrupted a fragmented handshake message. A remote peer could trigger an uncaught TypeError in process(), causing the connection or hosting process to fail. This issue is fixed in version 1.4.1.
CVSS	added	—	AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Weakness type (CWE)	added	—	CWE-476
Weakness type (CWE)	added	—	CWE-248
Affected versions (publisher)	added	—	New affected value received. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/119xxx/CVE-2026-119188.json">CVE-2026-119188</a>
Reference	added	—	https://github.com/digitalbazaar/forge/commit/700d977d39f9f8f896c55b0763eebb940a2c087e
Reference	added	—	https://github.com/digitalbazaar/forge/releases/tag/v1.4.1
Reference	added	—	https://github.com/digitalbazaar/forge/security/advisories/GHSA-8hrf-8g6f-7xwp

Source identifier: security-advisories@github.com

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