CVE-2026-115585: CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption in py-pdf pypdf
Description
pypdf versions prior to 6.21.2 contain a vulnerability where repeated malformed cross-reference entries can cause excessive resource consumption by triggering complete PDF stream reloads during recovery attempts. This issue leads to long runtimes when processing crafted PDF files. The vulnerability is fixed in version 6.21.2.
CVSS v4.0
Score 7.1high
Affected software
py-pdf
pypdf
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AI-Powered Analysis
Machine-generated threat intelligence
Technical Analysis
CVE-2026-115585 describes an uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in the pypdf library, a pure-Python PDF processing tool. The flaw exists because an incomplete fix for malformed cross-reference entries allowed repeated recovery attempts to reload the entire PDF stream each time, even if a recovery cache was present. This behavior can be exploited by crafted PDF files with malicious cross-reference streams to cause long processing runtimes, effectively a denial-of-service condition. The issue was resolved in pypdf version 6.21.2.
Potential Impact
An attacker can cause high resource consumption and long runtimes in applications using vulnerable versions of pypdf by supplying specially crafted PDF files. This can lead to denial-of-service conditions due to excessive CPU or memory usage during PDF parsing.
Mitigation Recommendations
Upgrade to pypdf version 6.21.2 or later, where the vulnerability is fixed. No other mitigation is required as the issue is resolved in this official patch.
Technical Details
- Data Version
- 5.2
- Assigner Short Name
- GitHub_M
- Date Reserved
- 2026-10-22T22:53:15.238Z
- Cvss Version
- 4.0
- State
- PUBLISHED
Threat ID: 6adbbaa6d73cc49347b780ec
Added to database: 10/23/2026, 19:51:02 UTC
Last enriched: 10/23/2026, 20:05:08 UTC
Last updated: 10/23/2026, 20:05:08 UTC
Views: 5
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