CWE data temporarily unavailableCWE data is currently experiencing intermittent outages, which may cause incomplete section loading on CVE pages. We are actively working on a fix.

CVE-2026-0992

Description

A flaw was found in the libxml2 library. This uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability occurs when processing XML catalogs that contain repeated elements pointing to the same downstream catalog. A remote attacker can exploit this by supplying crafted catalogs, causing the parser to redundantly traverse catalog chains. This leads to excessive CPU consumption and degrades application availability, resulting in a denial-of-service condition.

Statement

This vulnerability is rated Low for Red Hat. It affects applications that use the libxml2 library to process XML catalogs. An attacker must locally supply specially crafted XML catalogs containing repeated elements, which can lead to excessive CPU consumption and a denial-of-service condition due to redundant catalog chain traversal.

Mitigation

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score2.9N/A2.9
Attack VectorLocalN/ALocal
Attack ComplexityHighN/AHigh
Privileges RequiredNoneN/ANone
User InteractionNoneN/ANone
ScopeUnchangedN/AUnchanged
ConfidentialityNoneN/ANone
Integrity ImpactNoneN/ANone
Availability ImpactLowN/ALow

Vector

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

cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank Nick Wellnhofer for reporting this issue.

Frequently Asked Questions

Not sure what something means? Check out our Security Glossary.

Want to get errata notifications? Sign up here.