Non-Constant Time String Comparison

Affecting cookie-signature package, versions <1.0.4

Overview

'cookie-signature' is a library for signing cookies.

Versions before 1.0.4 of the library use the built-in string comparison mechanism, ===, and not a time constant string comparison. As a result, the comparison will fail faster when the first characters in the token are incorrect. An attacker can use this difference to perform a timing attack, essentially allowing them to guess the secret one character at a time.

You can read more about timing attacks in Node.js on the Snyk blog: https://snyk.io/blog/node-js-timing-attack-ccc-ctf/

Remediation

Upgrade to 1.0.4 or greater.

References

• GitHub History
• GitHub Commit