CVE-2026-72912: CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption in gchq CyberChef
CyberChef is a web app for encryption, encoding, compression, and data analysis. Prior to 11.3.0, CyberChef's pretty-recipe parser in src/core/Utils.mjs can exhaust client-side CPU when a malformed #recipe= URL fragment containing a large number of unmatched quote characters reaches Utils.parseRecipeConfig(). The function synchronously applies a complex global regular expression that may perform heavy backtracking before rejecting the input, causing the victim's browser tab to freeze during startup for seconds or longer. No code execution, data exfiltration, or privilege escalation occurs. This issue is fixed in version 11.3.0.
AI Analysis
Technical Summary
CyberChef's pretty-recipe parser in src/core/Utils.mjs synchronously applies a complex global regular expression to parse #recipe= URL fragments. Prior to version 11.3.0, a malformed URL fragment containing a large number of unmatched quote characters causes heavy backtracking in the regex engine, resulting in excessive CPU usage and freezing the victim's browser tab during startup. This is an uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability classified as CWE-400. No other impacts such as code execution or data leakage are reported. The issue is resolved in CyberChef 11.3.0.
Potential Impact
The vulnerability causes denial of service on the client side by freezing the browser tab due to excessive CPU consumption. There is no impact on confidentiality, integrity, or privilege escalation. No code execution or data exfiltration is possible.
Mitigation Recommendations
Upgrade CyberChef to version 11.3.0 or later, where this issue is fixed. No other mitigation is required as the vulnerability is resolved in the official fix.
CVE-2026-72912: CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption in gchq CyberChef
Description
CyberChef is a web app for encryption, encoding, compression, and data analysis. Prior to 11.3.0, CyberChef's pretty-recipe parser in src/core/Utils.mjs can exhaust client-side CPU when a malformed #recipe= URL fragment containing a large number of unmatched quote characters reaches Utils.parseRecipeConfig(). The function synchronously applies a complex global regular expression that may perform heavy backtracking before rejecting the input, causing the victim's browser tab to freeze during startup for seconds or longer. No code execution, data exfiltration, or privilege escalation occurs. This issue is fixed in version 11.3.0.
CVSS v3.1
Score 4.3medium
Affected software
gchq
CyberChef
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AI-Powered Analysis
Machine-generated threat intelligence
Technical Analysis
CyberChef's pretty-recipe parser in src/core/Utils.mjs synchronously applies a complex global regular expression to parse #recipe= URL fragments. Prior to version 11.3.0, a malformed URL fragment containing a large number of unmatched quote characters causes heavy backtracking in the regex engine, resulting in excessive CPU usage and freezing the victim's browser tab during startup. This is an uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability classified as CWE-400. No other impacts such as code execution or data leakage are reported. The issue is resolved in CyberChef 11.3.0.
Potential Impact
The vulnerability causes denial of service on the client side by freezing the browser tab due to excessive CPU consumption. There is no impact on confidentiality, integrity, or privilege escalation. No code execution or data exfiltration is possible.
Mitigation Recommendations
Upgrade CyberChef to version 11.3.0 or later, where this issue is fixed. No other mitigation is required as the vulnerability is resolved in the official fix.
Technical Details
- Data Version
- 5.2
- Assigner Short Name
- GitHub_M
- Date Reserved
- 2026-08-10T17:57:26.143Z
- Cvss Version
- 3.1
- State
- PUBLISHED
Threat ID: 6a7b1b30bf8831d539bca9df
Added to database: 08/11/2026, 12:53:04 UTC
Last enriched: 08/11/2026, 12:56:32 UTC
Last updated: 09/25/2026, 01:47:44 UTC
Views: 71
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