@sigstore/core has DSSE payloadType type-binding failure

### Impact The `preAuthEncoding` function in `@sigstore/core` uses Node.js `'ascii'` encoding when converting the PAE (Pre-Authentication Encoding) string to bytes. This allows `payloadType` to be mutated after signing without invalidating the signature, breaking the type-binding guarantee that DSSE is designed to provide. In `packages/core/src/dsse.ts`, the PAE function builds a string containing `payloadType` and then encodes it with `Buffer.from(prefix, 'ascii')`. In Node.js, `'ascii'` encoding for string-to-Buffer is equivalent to `'latin1'`, which **truncates characters above U+00FF to their low byte**. This means for any ASCII character, there exist Unicode characters (at U+01xx, U+02xx, etc.) that produce the identical encoded byte: | Original | Codepoint | Mutant | Codepoint | Encoded byte | |----------|-----------|--------|-----------|--------------| | `t` | U+0074 | `Ŵ` | U+0174 | `0x74` | | `e` | U+0065 | `ť` | U+0165 | `0x65` | An attacker can substitute every character in `payloadType` with a Unicode variant whose low byte matches, producing **identical PAE bytes** and a passing signature verification. Additionally, `payloadType.length` returns the JavaScript string length (UTF-16 code units) rather than the UTF-8 byte length required by the DSSE spec, though this is only a contributing factor for non-ASCII types. #### Reproduction ```javascript const { preAuthEncoding } = require('@sigstore/core/dist/dsse.js'); const payload = Buffer.from('hello world'); const original = preAuthEncoding('text/plain', payload); // U+01xx chars whose low bytes match the original ASCII chars const mutant = preAuthEncoding('\u0174\u0165\u0178\u0174/\u0170\u016c\u0161\u0169\u016e', payload); console.log('PAE bytes equal:', original.equals(mutant)); // true — should be false ```

Source published

26 Jun 2026 19:11:19 UTC

Source modified

10 Sep 2026 03:51:08 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:17:17 UTC

Source terms

GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0

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CVSS_V3 · CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L

Publisher rating · MODERATE