CVE-2026-26209
March 23, 2026
cbor2 provides encoding and decoding for the Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) serialization format. Versions prior to 5.9.0 are vulnerable to a Denial of Service (DoS) attack caused by uncontrolled recursion when decoding deeply nested CBOR structures. This vulnerability affects both the pure Python implementation and the C extension "_cbor2". The C extension relies on Python's internal recursion limits "Py_EnterRecursiveCall" rather than a data-driven depth limit, meaning it still raises "RecursionError" and crashes the worker process when the limit is hit. While the library handles moderate nesting levels, it lacks a hard depth limit. An attacker can supply a crafted CBOR payload containing approximately 100,000 nested arrays "0x81". When "cbor2.loads()" attempts to parse this, it hits the Python interpreter's maximum recursion depth or exhausts the stack, causing the process to crash with a "RecursionError". Because the library does not enforce its own limits, it allows an external attacker to exhaust the host application's stack resource. In many web application servers (e.g., Gunicorn, Uvicorn) or task queues (Celery), an unhandled "RecursionError" terminates the worker process immediately. By sending a stream of these small (<100KB) malicious packets, an attacker can repeatedly crash worker processes, resulting in a complete Denial of Service for the application. Version 5.9.0 patches the issue.
Affected Packages
https://github.com/agronholm/cbor2.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=1.0.0 <5.9.0Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 5.9.0https://github.com/agronholm/cbor2.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=1.0.0 <5.9.0Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 5.9.0https://github.com/agronholm/cbor2.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=1.0.0 <5.9.0Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 5.9.0https://github.com/agronholm/cbor2.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=1.0.0 <5.9.0Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 5.9.0cbor2 (PYTHON):
Affected version(s) >=1.0.0 <5.9.0Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 5.9.0cbor2 (PYTHON):
Affected version(s) >=1.0.0 <5.9.0Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 5.9.0cbor2 (PYTHON):
Affected version(s) >=1.0.0 <5.9.0Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 5.9.0Related ResourcesĀ (6)
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Contact UsCVSS v4
Base Score:
8.7
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Attack Requirements
NONE
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Vulnerable System Confidentiality
NONE
Vulnerable System Integrity
NONE
Vulnerable System Availability
HIGH
Subsequent System Confidentiality
NONE
Subsequent System Integrity
NONE
Subsequent System Availability
NONE
CVSS v3
Base Score:
7.5
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Weakness Type (CWE)
Uncontrolled Recursion
EPSS
Base Score:
0.06