Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2023-46234

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2023-10-26
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 4.2.2 or later.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
browserify-sign is a package to duplicate the functionality of node's crypto public key functions, much of this is based on Fedor Indutny's work on indutny/tls.js. An upper bound check issue in `dsaVerify` function allows an attacker to construct signatures that can be successfully verified by any public key, thus leading to a signature forgery attack. All places in this project that involve DSA verification of user-input signatures will be affected by this vulnerability. This issue has been patched in version 4.2.2.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-347

The application accepts signed data without properly verifying the signature, so an attacker can forge or tamper with content that the system is meant to trust — tokens, updates, licences. Everything built on that trust then becomes unreliable. Remediation is verifying every signature against the correct key and rejecting anything that does not validate.

General guidance for the improper signature verification class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 11.0= 12.0
Browserify SignApplication
Affected:< 4.2.2

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 4.2.2 or later
Fixed in 4.2.2
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

browserify-sign version 4.2.2 or later

  1. For Node.js projects using browserify-sign: Run 'npm install [email protected]' or 'npm update browserify-sign' to install the patched version
  2. After updating, verify the installed version matches or exceeds 4.2.2 using 'npm list browserify-sign'
  3. Rebuild or re-bundle any project that depends on browserify-sign to include the patched version
  4. For Debian systems: Run 'apt-get update && apt-get install node-browserify-sign' (or equivalent package name) once Debian releases the patched version
Caveat Check project release notes for any breaking changes between your current version and 4.2.2; however, this is a security patch focused on signature verification logic

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,950. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-46234 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data