CyberChef’s pretty-recipe parser vulnerable to client-side ReDoS / CPU exhaustion when parsing a malformed #recipe= URL

MITRE NVD CVE.ORG JSON API

Summary

CVECVE-2026-72912
StatePUBLISHED
AssignerGitHub_M
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2026-08-10 21:17:26 UTC
Updated2026-08-10 21:17:26 UTC
DescriptionCyberChef is a web app for encryption, encoding, compression, and data analysis. Prior to 11.3.0, CyberChef's pretty-recipe parser in src/core/Utils.mjs can exhaust client-side CPU when a malformed #recipe= URL fragment containing a large number of unmatched quote characters reaches Utils.parseRecipeConfig(). The function synchronously applies a complex global regular expression that may perform heavy backtracking before rejecting the input, causing the victim's browser tab to freeze during startup for seconds or longer. No code execution, data exfiltration, or privilege escalation occurs. This issue is fixed in version 11.3.0.

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.1 4.3 MEDIUM from [email protected]

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Problem Types: CWE-400 | CWE-1333 | CWE-400 CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption | CWE-1333 CWE-1333: Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity

VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
3.1[email protected]Secondary4.3MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
3.1CNADECLARED4.3MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA Gchq CyberChef affected < 11.3.0 Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
github.com/gchq/CyberChef/pull/2687 [email protected] github.com
github.com/gchq/CyberChef/security/advisories/GHSA-w74r-jxjh-gwr6 [email protected] github.com
github.com/gchq/CyberChef/releases/tag/v11.3.0 [email protected] github.com
github.com/gchq/CyberChef/commit/f77ddf489050b339faa978bb28da954bafd289ae [email protected] github.com
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