CVE-2026-125333
Description
A flaw was found in node-forge. A remote attacker operating a malicious server or positioned on the network path can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by returning an HTTP response containing specially crafted headers or cookie values with excessive whitespace. When the HTTP client module trims trailing whitespace using an inefficient regular expression, processing time increases dramatically. This behavior can freeze the application's event loop or browser execution thread, rendering the client unresponsive.
Statement
This vulnerability is rated as Moderate severity because exploitation requires a specific, non-standard application setup and exclusively causes denial of service without compromising confidentiality or integrity. Standard imports of the library do not load the affected HTTP sub-module, greatly limiting exposure across typical Red Hat deployments. A disruption occurs only when custom socket pooling is explicitly implemented to process responses from untrusted endpoints, allowing a malicious server or an on-path attacker to stall the application event loop.
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).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 5.9 | N/A | 5.9 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | High | N/A | High |
| Privileges Required | None | N/A | None |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | None |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | None |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU)
Attackers can create crafted inputs that intentionally cause the regular expression to use excessive backtracking in a way that causes the CPU consumption to spike.
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