CGI versions before 5.00 for Perl allow CPU exhaustion via a backtracking regex on the XForms multipart/related Content-Type
Summary
| CVE | CVE-2026-120632 |
|---|---|
| State | PUBLISHED |
| Assigner | CPANSec |
| Source Priority | CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback |
| Published | 2026-11-04 00:17:24 UTC |
| Updated | 2026-11-04 18:42:35 UTC |
| Description | CGI versions before 5.00 for Perl allow CPU exhaustion via a backtracking regex on the XForms multipart/related Content-Type. When a POST Content-Type contains multipart/related, the boundary and start parameters are extracted with an unanchored pattern that puts .+ on either side of the boundary capture, which backtracks in cubic time on a header that does not match. No request body is needed. |
Risk And Classification
EPSS: 0.001910000 probability, percentile 0.088410000 (date 2026-11-04)
Problem Types: CWE-1333 | CWE-1333 CWE-1333 Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity
There are no known software configurations currently associated with this CVE in NVD or the CVE Program record.
References
| Reference | Source | Link | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| github.com/leejo/CGI.pm/commit/1e529c7ac8d410a51b4b04ab9d6cc00d51ef33c0.... | 9b29abf9-4ab0-4765-b253-1875cd9b441e | github.com | |
| metacpan.org/release/LEEJO/CGI-5.00/changes | 9b29abf9-4ab0-4765-b253-1875cd9b441e | metacpan.org | |
| metacpan.org/release/LEEJO/CGI-4.72/source/lib/CGI.pm | 9b29abf9-4ab0-4765-b253-1875cd9b441e | metacpan.org | |
| CVE Program record | CVE.ORG | www.cve.org | canonical |
| NVD vulnerability detail | NVD | nvd.nist.gov | canonical, analysis |
No vendor comments have been submitted for this CVE.
Additional Advisory Data
Solutions
CNA: Upgrade to CGI 5.00 or later.
Workarounds
CNA: For deployments that cannot upgrade, reject Content-Type request headers longer than 1KB at the web server.
There are currently no legacy QID mappings associated with this CVE.