Vulnerability details

CVE-2026-84375

nodeca js-yaml

js-yaml: maxTotalMergeKeys does not limit CPU use for empty merge sources

CVSS 3.1
7.5High

Official description

js-yaml is a JavaScript YAML parser and dumper. From 3.0.0 until 3.15.2, 4.3.2, and 5.4.1, maxTotalMergeKeys in lib/js-yaml/loader.js and lib/loader.js does not count empty mapping sources while processing the merge key <<. An attacker can alias a large sequence of empty mappings into many merge targets, causing O(N * K) processing while totalMergeKeys remains unchanged and the configured resource limit is never reached. A relatively small YAML document can therefore cause prolonged CPU consumption in applications that parse untrusted YAML, and merge processing is enabled by default on these release lines. In v3 & v4, merge is enabled by default so the severity score is higher. This issue is fixed in versions 3.15.2, 4.3.2, and 5.4.1.

CVSS scores

ScoreVersionSourceVector
7.5High 3.1 CVEProject cvelistV5 (CNA) (GitHub_M) CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

VendorProductVersionsSource
nodeca js-yaml >= 3.0.0, < 3.15.2 CVEProject cvelistV5 (CNA)
nodeca js-yaml >= 4.0.0, < 4.3.2 CVEProject cvelistV5 (CNA)
nodeca js-yaml >= 5.0.0, < 5.4.1 CVEProject cvelistV5 (CNA)

References and advisories

8
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Details

Published
2026-09-02
Last updated
2026-09-29
State
Published
Assigner (CNA)
GitHub_M

Exploit prediction (EPSS)

0.54%
Probability of exploitation in 30 days
45.6%
Percentile (among all CVEs)

SSVC assessment (CISA)

Automatable
Yes
Exploitation
None
Technical impact
Partial

Weaknesses (CWE)

  • CWE-400
    Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
  • CWE-407
    Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity