Critical severity · published Sep 28, 2026
CVE-2026-102268
PyJWT: Asymmetric-PEM detection bypass: whitespace/line-ending-mutated public keys skip the HS/asymmetric confusion guard
9.1
CVSS
0.2%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
PyJWT is a Python implementation of JSON Web Token standards. Prior to 2.14.0, is_pem_format in jwt/utils.py is affected because is_pem_format does not recognize every PEM representation accepted by the cryptography loader. This occurs when an application mixes HMAC and asymmetric algorithms and supplies a mutated public-key PEM as raw key bytes. As a result, HMACAlgorithm.prepare_key treats the unrecognized asymmetric public key as an HMAC secret. Consequently, an attacker who knows the public key can forge authenticated HMAC tokens. This issue is fixed in version 2.14.0.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.2% · higher than 14% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
PY
pyjwt · jpadilla
< 2.14.0 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-102268
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-102268
x_refsource_CONFIRM
https://github.com/jpadilla/pyjwt/security/advisories/GHSA-ffc3-869f-jxw9
x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/jpadilla/pyjwt/commit/8b4e233a22206b34ec1186e912e75c0b2396ac07
x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/jpadilla/pyjwt/releases/tag/2.14.0
More from pyjwt
9.1
CVE-2026-102267
PyJWT: PyJWKClient follows redirects when fetching JWKS
9.1
CVE-2026-102266
PyJWK accepts empty HMAC keys, bypassing PyJWT's empty-key validation
8.2
CVE-2026-102275
PyJWT accepts inconsistent OKP x/d JWKs, causing public/private key identity confusion
7.5
CVE-2026-102274
PyJWT: Malformed RSA JWK aborts parsing of an entire JWK Set
7.5
CVE-2026-101918
PyJWT: Unauthenticated RecursionError DoS in pre-verification payload parse (PyJWKClient.get_signing_key_from_jwt / verify_signature=False)
