CVE-2026-40902
An attacker can craft a minimal XLSX file (~1.6KB) containing a <row r="999999999"/> element that inflates cachedHighestRow to 999,999,999, causing any subsequent row iteration to attempt ~1 billion loop cycles and exhaust CPU resources.
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.40%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
PhpSpreadsheet is a pure PHP library for reading and writing spreadsheet files. Prior to 1.30.4, 2.1.16, 2.4.5, 3.10.5, and 5.7.0, the XLSX reader's ColumnAndRowAttributes::readRowAttributes() method reads row numbers from XML attributes without validating them against the spreadsheet maximum row limit (AddressRange::MAX_ROW = 1,048,576). An attacker can craft a minimal XLSX file (~1.6KB) containing a <row r="999999999"/> element that inflates cachedHighestRow to 999,999,999, causing any subsequent row iteration to attempt ~1 billion loop cycles and exhaust CPU resources. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.30.4, 2.1.16, 2.4.5, 3.10.5, and 5.7.0.
- 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
- 0.40% probability · 33th percentile
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-770
- Affected
- phpoffice/phpspreadsheet
- Source
- security-advisories@github.com
References
- https://github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/security/advisories/GHSA-7c6m-4442-2x6mExploit, Mitigation, Vendor Advisory
- https://github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/security/advisories/GHSA-7c6m-4442-2x6mExploit, Mitigation, Vendor Advisory
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.