CVE-2026-93653
Description
A denial of service flaw was found in Poppler's Splash backend. A crafted PDF with tiling-pattern geometry approaching the int32 boundary can cause SplashOutputDev::tilingPatternFill to compute an attacker-controlled repeat count that drives an excessively long loop in the pattern-fill scanline routine, without a corresponding memory allocation. An attacker could exploit this by supplying a malicious PDF to an application that renders it via Poppler's Splash backend, causing the rendering process to consume 100% CPU for an attacker-controlled, extended duration.
Statement
This Moderate impact flaw in Poppler's Splash backend can lead to a denial of service when processing specially crafted PDF files. Applications that render untrusted PDFs using Poppler's Splash backend are susceptible to an unbounded CPU loop, consuming significant system resources.
Mitigation
To mitigate this issue, avoid opening or processing untrusted PDF files with applications that rely on Poppler's Splash backend. This operational control reduces the risk of an attacker triggering the denial of service vulnerability.
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 | 5.5 | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | N/A |
| Privileges Required | None | N/A | N/A |
| User Interaction | Required | N/A | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | N/A |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | N/A |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: 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)
Acknowledgements
Red Hat would like to thank Donghai Zhu (School of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang Gongshang University) for reporting this issue.
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