CVE-2026-53752
A well-formed DOCX containing mutually based styles causes unbounded recursion in PropertyResolver.fillPPrStack and related effective-style resolution paths, resulting in StackOverflowError.
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
docx4j is an open source Java library for creating, editing, and saving OpenXML packages, including DOCX, PPTX, and XLSX files. Prior to 11.5.14, PropertyResolver and adjacent helpers recursively follow the WordprocessingML w:basedOn style inheritance chain without cycle detection. A well-formed DOCX containing mutually based styles causes unbounded recursion in PropertyResolver.fillPPrStack and related effective-style resolution paths, resulting in StackOverflowError. Server-side conversion and table-of-contents processing of an untrusted document can terminate a worker thread, degrade a thread pool, or deny service, although isolation in disposable workers or safe containment of StackOverflowError can reduce the practical effect. The fix adds cyclic-style tracking and CyclicStylesException handling. This issue is fixed in version 11.5.14.
- 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 · 50th percentile
- Public exploits
- None in Exploit-DB
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-674, CWE-770
- Source
- security-advisories@github.com
EPSS 0.6% since 26 October 2026; no change recorded yet. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.
References
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.