VulnerabilityReceived

CVE-2026-73643

If the key is a nested flow sequence of the same shape, every level is parsed twice, causing O(2^n) work and allowing an input under 200 bytes to keep one CPU busy for minutes, block the Node.js event loop, and stall the process.

HIGH 7.5EPSS 0.34%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.34%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

js-yaml is a JavaScript YAML parser and dumper. From 5.0.0 until 5.2.2, parsing a small YAML document can take exponential time when an application calls load() or loadAll() on untrusted input. In src/parser/parser.ts, readFlowCollection uses restoreState and calls parseNode a second time when a flow-sequence entry is recognized as a key: value pair. If the key is a nested flow sequence of the same shape, every level is parsed twice, causing O(2^n) work and allowing an input under 200 bytes to keep one CPU busy for minutes, block the Node.js event loop, and stall the process. No anchors, aliases, merges, tags, or nondefault options are required. This issue is fixed in version 5.2.2.

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: 0.34% probability · 28th percentile
CISA KEV: Not listed
Weakness: CWE-407
Source: security-advisories@github.com

References

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.