tough vulnerability

Missing expiration, hash, and length enforcement in delegated metadata validation in awslabs/tough before tough-v0.22.0 allows remote authenticated users with delegated signing authority to bypass TUF specification integrity checks for delegated targets metadata and poison the local metadata cache, because load_delegations does not apply the same validation checks as the top-level targets metadata path. We recommend you upgrade to tough-v0.22.0 / tuftool-v0.15.0.

Published 24 Apr 2026Updated 20 Oct 20266 sources
CVSS 7.1

What happened

Missing expiration, hash, and length enforcement in delegated metadata validation in awslabs/tough before tough-v0.22.0 allows remote authenticated users with delegated signing authority to bypass TUF specification integrity checks for delegated targets metadata and poison the local metadata cache, because load_delegations does not apply the same validation checks as the top-level targets metadata path. We recommend you upgrade to tough-v0.22.0 / tuftool-v0.15.0.

Affected versions

tough: 0.9.0 through 0.21 (custom); 0 through 0.14 (custom) Fixed: See vendor advisory.

Why it matters

Review the vendor advisory and exposure of the affected product to determine operational impact.

Detection & mitigation

  • Apply vendor-provided updates or mitigations.
  • Review affected product exposure and access logs.

Public PoC references

No public PoC reference has passed the current publication threshold.