CVE-2026-14895
String::Util versions before 1.36 for Perl are susceptible to a regular expression denial of service.
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.63%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
String::Util versions before 1.36 for Perl are susceptible to a regular expression denial of service. The trim and rtrim functions stripped trailing whitespace with s/\s*$//u. Because \s* matches greedily and the $ anchor fails whenever a non-whitespace character follows the whitespace, the regex engine retries the match at each offset of a long whitespace run, producing quadratic backtracking. The fix replaces \s*$ with \s+$. Any caller that passes untrusted input to trim or rtrim can trigger CPU exhaustion with a string containing a long run of whitespace.
- CVSS 3.1
- 7.5 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- EPSS
- 0.63% probability · 48th percentile
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-1333
- Source
- 9b29abf9-4ab0-4765-b253-1875cd9b441e
References
- https://github.com/scottchiefbaker/String-Util/commit/f8150867aaeb8f57c59601aefb2193f2caed8745.patch
- https://github.com/scottchiefbaker/String-Util/releases
- https://metacpan.org/release/BAKERSCOT/String-Util-1.36/diff/BAKERSCOT/String-Util-1.35#lib/String/Util.pm
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/07/07/18
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.