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CVE-2026-59168: CWE-674: Uncontrolled Recursion in TomWright dasel

0
Medium
VulnerabilityCVE-2026-59168cvecve-2026-59168cwe-674
Published: 09/21/2026 (09/21/2026, 16:55:07 UTC)
Source: CVE Database V5
Vendor/Project: TomWright
Product: dasel

Description

Dasel is a command-line tool and library for querying, modifying, and transforming data structures. From 3.0.0 until 3.11.1, parsing/json/json_reader.go decodeValue, decodeObject, and decodeArray, and parsing/xml/reader.go parseElement, recurse once per input nesting level without a depth guard. Deeply nested attacker-controlled JSON or XML supplied through parsing.Format(...).NewReader(...).Read(data), the command-line interface, or the parse selector function can exhaust the Go goroutine stack and raise an unrecoverable fatal error that terminates the entire process. The XML input-size limit does not prevent depth exhaustion, and defer or recover cannot intercept the failure. This issue is fixed in version 3.11.1.

CVSS v3.1

Score 6.2medium

Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected software

TomWright

dasel

Affected versions
>=3.0.0 <3.11.1
github.com/tomwright/dasel
pkg:golang/github.com/tomwright/dasel
Affected versions
>=3.0.0 <3.11.1

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AI-Powered Analysis

Machine-generated threat intelligence

AILast updated: 09/21/2026, 17:16:40 UTC

Technical Analysis

Dasel is a command-line tool and library for data structure manipulation. Versions 3.0.0 through 3.11.0 have a vulnerability (CWE-674) in the parsing/json/json_reader.go and parsing/xml/reader.go files where decodeValue, decodeObject, decodeArray, and parseElement functions recurse once per input nesting level without a depth guard. This uncontrolled recursion on deeply nested JSON or XML input can exhaust the Go goroutine stack, causing an unrecoverable fatal error that terminates the process. The XML input size limit does not mitigate this issue, and Go's defer or recover cannot handle the failure. The vulnerability is resolved in version 3.11.1.

Potential Impact

An attacker can supply deeply nested JSON or XML input to cause stack exhaustion in the dasel process, resulting in a fatal error and process termination. This leads to a denial of service (DoS) condition. There is no impact on confidentiality or integrity. The vulnerability requires local or limited access (AV:L) and no privileges are required to trigger it (PR:N).

Mitigation Recommendations

Upgrade dasel to version 3.11.1 or later, where this uncontrolled recursion vulnerability is fixed. No other mitigations are indicated or effective since the failure cannot be intercepted by defer or recover, and XML input size limits do not prevent the issue.

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Technical Details

Data Version
5.2
Assigner Short Name
GitHub_M
Date Reserved
2026-07-02T16:50:27.887Z
Cvss Version
3.1
State
PUBLISHED

Threat ID: 6ab1630f55bf5e2cf5345b93

Added to database: 09/21/2026, 17:02:07 UTC

Last enriched: 09/21/2026, 17:16:40 UTC

Last updated: 09/22/2026, 00:07:38 UTC

Views: 13

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