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GHSA-65pc-fj4g-8rjx CVE-2026-45409 PYSEC-2026-215

Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA): Specially crafted inputs to idna.encode() can bypass CVE-2024-3651 fix

Medium PyPI
Severity
6.9 / 10
Medium · CVSS 4.0
Exploit chance (EPSS)
0.41%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 35.09% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited
No
Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness
CWE-1333 Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity
Fix
3.15
Upgrade idna to this version or later

Description

This is the same issue as CVE-2024-3651, however the original remediation in 2024 was not a complete fix. Payloads such as "\u0660" * N or "\u30fb" * N + "\u6f22" utilize the valid_contexto function prior to length rejection, and for high values of N will take a long time to process.

Impact

A specially crafted argument to the idna.encode() function could consume significant resources. This may lead to a denial-of-service.

Patches

Starting in version 3.14, the function rejects long inputs as soon as practicable prior to any further processing to minimize resource consumption. In version 3.15, this approach was extended to lesser used alternate functions (i.e. per-label conversions and codec support).

Workarounds

Domain names cannot exceed 253 characters in length, if this length limit is enforced prior to passing the domain to the idna.encode() function it should no longer consume significant resources. This is triggered by arbitrarily large inputs that would not occur in normal usage, but may be passed to the library assuming there is no preliminary input validation by the higher-level application.

Affected versions

PyPI

PackageVulnerableFixed in
idna
< 3.15
3.15
idna
< 3.15
3.15

How to fix

Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.

idna PyPI → 3.15

pip
pip install --upgrade "idna>=3.15"
poetry
poetry add "idna>=3.15"
uv
uv add "idna>=3.15"

Severity breakdown

CVSS 4.0 6.9

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Attack requirements
None
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality (vulnerable system)
None
Integrity (vulnerable system)
None
Availability (vulnerable system)
Low
Confidentiality (subsequent systems)
None
Integrity (subsequent systems)
None
Availability (subsequent systems)
None

CVSS 3.1 5.3

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

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low

Weakness

CWE-1333: Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity

The product uses a regular expression with a worst-case computational complexity that is inefficient and possibly exponential.

How to prevent it
  • Architecture and Design: Use regular expressions that do not support backtracking, e.g. by removing nested quantifiers.
  • System Configuration: Set backtracking limits in the configuration of the regular expression implementation, such as PHP's pcre.backtrack_limit. Also consider limits on execution time for the process.
  • Implementation: Do not use regular expressions with untrusted input. If regular expressions must be used, avoid using backtracking in the expression.
  • Implementation: Limit the length of the input that the regular expression will process.

References

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. Last updated by the source
  3. Latest EPSS score
AdvisorySeverityWhy it's related
GHSA-jjg7-2v4v-x38h
Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) vulnerable to denial of service from specially crafted inputs to idna.encode
Medium Also affects idna
GHSA-7wch-p9px-956x
Forge: Regular expression denial of service in PEM decoding (pem.decode)
High Same weakness, CWE-1333
GHSA-xcq7-p3pf-p88h
OpenTelemetry Python: Unbounded tracestate parsing in opentelemetry-api
Medium Same weakness, CWE-1333
GHSA-xgh8-jp6q-p5x8
Pillow: ReDoS in XbmImagePlugin: 512-byte file stalls Image.open() for minutes
High Same weakness, CWE-1333
GHSA-rxp7-6hxx-x8q5
ip-address: Address6 matches a zone identifier in quadratic time ahead of its length limit, allowing a single long string to stall the process
Medium Same weakness, CWE-1333
GHSA-r925-mgvr-h9cc
Symfony: ReDoS in HeaderUtils::split() Reachable Through the Cache-Control Request Header
High Same weakness, CWE-1333
GHSA-4ffr-jq9g-5ffx
Nodemailer: Quadratic backtracking in SMTP AUTH mechanism detection regexes allows pre-auth remote denial of service
High Same weakness, CWE-1333
GHSA-m64x-33q8-m5h7
GitPython parse_actor_and_date() is vulnerable to quadratic backtracking on malformed identity lines
High Same weakness, CWE-1333

Credits: StanFromIreland, kjd

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