CVE-2026-85783 PUBLISHED

Crypt::Age versions before 0.004 for Perl allow CPU exhaustion via an unbounded number of recipient stanzas, each costing an X25519 scalar multiplication in unwrap_file_key

Assigner: CPANSec
Reserved: 04.09.2026 Published: 20.10.2026 Updated: 21.10.2026

Crypt::Age versions before 0.004 for Perl allow CPU exhaustion via an unbounded number of recipient stanzas, each costing an X25519 scalar multiplication in unwrap_file_key.

The header parser accepts any number of recipient stanzas, and unwrap_file_key tries every identity against every X25519 stanza. Each attempt runs a scalar multiplication, an HKDF and a ChaCha20-Poly1305 open. The header MAC cannot be checked first, because its key comes from the file key, which only a successful unwrap produces.

Each stanza is 98 bytes of attacker-chosen header and buys one scalar multiplication per identity held, and the file is rejected only after every one of them has run. A caller reaches this through decrypt, decrypt_file or decrypt_filehandle whenever it decrypts a file it did not write.

Product Status

Package Collection https://cpan.org/modules
Package Name Crypt-Age
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 0 to 0.004 (excl.)

Solutions

Upgrade to Crypt-Age 0.004 or later.

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling CWE
  • CWE-405 Asymmetric Resource Consumption (Amplification) CWE