GHSA-c2p3-7m5p-cv8x CVE-2026-45133
Symfony hardened the parser when handling untrusted input
- Severity
- 0.0 / 10
- High · CVSS 4.0
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 0.63%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 50.19% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-1333 Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity
- CWE-674 Uncontrolled Recursion
- CWE-776 Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs ('XML Entity Expansion')
- Fix
- Available
- 2 packages have a fixed version
Description
Description
Symfony\Component\Yaml\Parser is the entry point for parsing YAML strings into PHP values via Yaml::parse(). When the parser is exposed to attacker-controlled input, deeply nested mappings or sequences cause both the block-level (Parser::parseBlock()) and inline (Inline::parseSequence() / Inline::parseMapping()) parsers to recurse without a depth limit. A crafted document exhausts the PHP stack and crashes the worker.
Resolution
The Parser now tracks recursion depth in a shared ParserState object across both block-level and inline parsing, with a default limit of 128. The limit is configurable via a new $maxNestingLevel argument on Parser::__construct(), Yaml::parse() and Yaml::parseFile().
The patch for this issue is available here for branch 5.4.
Credits
Symfony would like to thank Pietro Tirenna (Shielder) for reporting the issue and Nicolas Grekas for fixing it.
Affected versions
Packagist
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| symfony/symfony | < 5.4.52 |
5.4.52 |
| symfony/symfony | >= 6.0.0, < 6.4.40 |
6.4.40 |
| symfony/symfony | >= 7.0.0, < 7.4.12 |
7.4.12 |
| symfony/symfony | >= 8.0.0, < 8.0.12 |
8.0.12 |
| symfony/yaml | < 5.4.52 |
5.4.52 |
| symfony/yaml | >= 6.0.0, < 6.4.40 |
6.4.40 |
| symfony/yaml | >= 7.0.0, < 7.4.12 |
7.4.12 |
| symfony/yaml | >= 8.0.0, < 8.0.12 |
8.0.12 |
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.
symfony/symfony Packagist → 5.4.52
- composer
composer require symfony/symfony:^5.4.52
symfony/yaml Packagist → 5.4.52
- composer
composer require symfony/yaml:^5.4.52
Severity breakdown
CVSS 4.0 0.0
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/E:U
- 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
- Exploit maturity
- Unreported
CVSS 3.1 7.5
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
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.
CWE-674: Uncontrolled Recursion
The product does not properly control the amount of recursion that takes place, consuming excessive resources, such as allocated memory or the program stack.
How to prevent it
- Implementation: Ensure that an end condition will be reached under all logic conditions. The end condition may include checking against the depth of recursion and exiting with an error if the recursion goes too deep. The complexity of the end condition contributes to the effectiveness of this action.
- Implementation: Increase the stack size.
CWE-776: Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs ('XML Entity Expansion')
The product uses XML documents and allows their structure to be defined with a Document Type Definition (DTD), but it does not properly control the number of recursive definitions of entities.
How to prevent it
- Operation: If possible, prohibit the use of DTDs or use an XML parser that limits the expansion of recursive DTD entities.
- Implementation: Before parsing XML files with associated DTDs, scan for recursive entity declarations and do not continue parsing potentially explosive content.
References
Packages
Other links
- github.com/symfony/symfony/security/advisories/GHSA-c2p3-7m5p-cv8x
- github.com/symfony/symfony/commit/914f427ed9630ddb3904dafba763e53d9f133fe3
- github.com/FriendsOfPHP/security-advisories/blob/master/symfony/symfony/CVE-202…
- github.com/FriendsOfPHP/security-advisories/blob/master/symfony/yaml/CVE-2026-4…
- symfony.com/cve-2026-45133
- github.com/symfony/symfony/releases/tag/v5.4.52
- github.com/symfony/symfony/releases/tag/v6.4.40
- github.com/symfony/symfony/releases/tag/v7.4.12
- github.com/symfony/symfony/releases/tag/v8.0.12
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-2v3c-qxhr-7vpv Symfony: Unbounded Recursion in the YAML Inline Lexer Lets a Single Document Crash the Process | High | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-r925-mgvr-h9cc Symfony: ReDoS in HeaderUtils::split() Reachable Through the Cache-Control Request Header | High | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-h5x3-xfc9-m39h Symfony: UrlGenerator Dot-Segment Encoding Skips Every Other Chained `../` or `./` → Generated URL Collapses Off-Route Under RFC 3986 Normalization | Medium | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-v3wm-qf9p-c549 Symfony: HtmlSanitizer URL Parser Deny Gates Underinclusive: Percent-Encoded BiDi Marks and Unicode Whitespace Bypass Visual-Spoofing Defense | Medium | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-rrj9-5q2j-4gvr Symfony: Mailomat Mailer Webhook Parser Reads the HMAC Algorithm from the Request: Signature Algorithm Downgrade | Medium | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-38cx-cq6f-5755 Symfony: IpUtils::PRIVATE_SUBNETS Omits IPv6 Transition Forms (6to4, NAT64, Teredo, IPv4-compatible): SSRF Bypass in NoPrivateNetworkHttpClient | High | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-6h46-9jf5-q59x Symfony: Security Firewall Bypass via failure_forward Subrequest: Unauthenticated Access to access_control-Protected GET Routes | High | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-x5qj-865h-mgvm Symfony: HtmlSanitizer UrlAttributeSanitizer Misses URL Attributes | Medium | Also affects symfony/symfony |
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