CVE-2026-44777
Description
A flaw was found in jq, a command line JSON processor. The module loader fails to perform cycle detection when resolving imports. This missing cycle detection allows an attacker who can supply crafted modules with circular dependencies to exhaust the stack memory, causing an application crash, resulting in a denial of service.
Statement
To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker needs to supply crafted modules with circular dependencies to be processed by the jq module loader. This allows the attacker to cause an application crash with no other security impact. Due to these reasons, this issue has been rated with a moderate severity.
Mitigation
Do not process untrusted input with the jq command line JSON processor.
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 Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 5.5 | 5.5 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | Local | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | Low | N/A |
| Privileges Required | None | None | N/A |
| User Interaction | Required | Required | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | Unchanged | N/A |
| Confidentiality | None | None | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | None | N/A |
| Availability Impact | High | High | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)
Resources including CPU, memory, and stack memory could be rapidly consumed or exhausted, eventually leading to an exit or crash.
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Application Data
In some cases, an application's interpreter might kill a process or thread that appears to be consuming too much resources, such as with PHP's memory_limit setting. When the interpreter kills the process/thread, it might report an error containing detailed information such as the application's installation path.
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