CVE-2025-61920 Authlib is vulnerable to Denial of Service via Oversized JOSE Segments

High 7.5 Published Updated

Remote attackers can cause denial of service in Authlib by sending oversized JOSE segments, exhausting CPU and memory resources.

Exploited in the wild
Not known
Login needed
Not needed
Attackable
Over the internet
Victim action needed
Not needed
Fix
Available

What is CVE-2025-61920?

CVE-2025-61920 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in authlib, published on 10 Oct 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Authlib is a Python library which builds OAuth and OpenID Connect servers. Prior to version 1.6.5, Authlib’s JOSE implementation accepts unbounded JWS/JWT header and signature segments. A remote attacker can craft a token whose base64url‑encoded header or signature spans hundreds of megabytes. During verification, Authlib decodes and parses the full input before it is rejected, driving CPU and memory consumption to hostile levels and enabling denial of service. Version 1.6.5 patches the issue. Some temporary workarounds are available. Enforce input size limits before handing tokens to Authlib and/or use application-level throttling to reduce amplification risk.

Weakness: CWE-400, CWE-770, CWE-20

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-61920?

3 open source packages ship an affected version, including authlib. It affects 1 product.

PackageAffectedFixed in
authlib PyPIAll versions1.6.5
authlib PyPIAll versions1.6.5
authlib PyPIAll versions1.6.5
Linux distribution packages (4)
python-Authlib SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Python 3 15 SP6All versions1.3.1-150600.3.6.1
python-Authlib SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Python 3 15 SP7All versions1.3.1-150600.3.6.1
python-Authlib openSUSE:Leap 15.6All versions1.3.1-150600.3.6.1
python-Authlib openSUSE:TumbleweedAll versions1.6.5-1.1

Products include Authlib Authlib.

How do I fix CVE-2025-61920?

Upgrade authlib to 1.6.5 or later.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2025-61920 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-61920 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2025-61920, ECHO-9171-850d-97d8, GHSA-pq5p-34cr-23v9, PYSEC-2026-1203, ROOT-APP-PYPI-CVE-2025-61920, SUSE-SU-2025:3754-1 and 2 more.

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