CVE-2026-67215: DaveGamble cJSON · Uncontrolled Recursion
Affects DaveGamble cJSONSource CVE Database V5
Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.7 High : upgrade to 1.7.20 soon.
Data as of 27 Oct 2026, 17:11 UTC
- EPSS
- 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 52% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
- Patch
- Available – fixed in 1.7.20
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:NExploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 29 Jul 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors
A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.
What to do
Upgrade davegamble/cJSON to 1.7.20.
Affected software
| Product | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| DaveGamblecJSON | Affected
| Fixed in– |
GitHubdavegamble/cJSONpkg:github/davegamble/cJSONOther threats | Affected
| Fixed in
|
Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.
AI-suggested
If you cannot patch yet, avoid processing untrusted JSON Patch documents with cJSONUtils_ApplyPatches() or cJSONUtils_ApplyPatchesCaseSensitive().
Description
cJSON through 1.7.19 is vulnerable to uncontrolled recursion leading to stack exhaustion when an untrusted RFC 6902 JSON Patch is applied via cJSONUtils_ApplyPatches() or cJSONUtils_ApplyPatchesCaseSensitive(). A patch containing add and copy operations grafts duplicated subtrees to amplify document depth beyond the parser's nesting limit: cJSON_Delete() recurses with no depth bound, and the cJSON_Duplicate() guard CJSON_CIRCULAR_LIMIT is set to 10000, ten times the parser's 1000-level nesting limit and high enough to overflow a default thread stack. An attacker who can supply the patch document can crash the process, resulting in denial of service.
References
- joshua.hu/cjson-json-parser-cve-vulnerabilities (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/DaveGamble/cJSON/blob/v1.7.19/cJSON.c (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/DaveGamble/cJSON/blob/v1.7.19/cJSON_Utils.c (opens in a new tab)
- vulncheck.com/advisories/cjson-json-patch-copy-add-uncontrolled-recursion-stack-exhaustion (opens in a new tab)