CVE-2026-49461

Description

A flaw was found in pypdf. An attacker can craft a malicious PDF document containing a form XObject with self-references. When a user attempts to extract text from a page within this crafted PDF, it can lead to excessive memory consumption. This vulnerability may result in a Denial of Service (DoS) due to resource exhaustion.

Statement

Moderate: A flaw in pypdf and python-PyPDF2 can lead to a denial of service due to excessive memory consumption. This occurs when processing a specially crafted PDF document containing self-referencing form XObjects during text extraction. The vulnerability requires user interaction to trigger the text extraction process.

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 HatNVDcve.org
Base Score5.55.5N/A
Attack VectorLocalLocalN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredNoneLowN/A
User InteractionRequiredNoneN/A
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityNoneNoneN/A
Integrity ImpactNoneNoneN/A
Availability ImpactHighHighN/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:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Amplification

An infinite loop will cause unexpected consumption of resources, such as CPU cycles or memory. The software's operation may slow down, or cause a long time to respond.

Frequently Asked Questions

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