CVE-2026-9496: pacote · Denial of Service
Affects pacoteSource CVE Database V5
Public exploit available · CVSS 8.7 High : upgrade to 21.5.1 as a priority.
Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 06:59 UTC
- EPSS
- 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 28% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
- Patch
- Available – fixed in 21.5.1
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:PExploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 26 May 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: evidence found.
CVSS exploit maturity: proof of concept public
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), CVSS vector, the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 29 Oct 2026.
What to do
Upgrade pacote to 21.5.1.
Affected software
| Product | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| pacote | Affected
| Fixed in
|
| org.webjars.npm:pacote | Affected
| Fixed in– |
npmpacotepkg:npm/pacoteOther 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
A patch is available for this vulnerability. Since pacote is a cloud-hosted service, the vendor manages remediation and patch deployment server-side. Users should verify with the vendor advisory to confirm that their environment has been updated. No additional user action is required if the vendor has applied the patch.
Description
Versions of the package pacote from 11.2.7 and before 21.5.1 are vulnerable to Denial of Service (DoS) via the addGitSha function. An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by supplying a specially crafted spec.rawSpec value that triggers the function’s regex replacement and string-manipulation logic, causing excessive CPU consumption and potentially stalling or crashing the process.
References
- security.snyk.io/vuln/SNYK-JS-PACOTE-8225084 (opens in a new tab)
- security.snyk.io/vuln/SNYK-JAVA-ORGWEBJARSNPM-16874025 (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/npm/pacote/blob/9d7459440826ab4cf962ef98d8f3fd0c4d464b5c/lib/util/add-git-sha.js%23L2C1-L13C2 (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/npm/pacote/commit/ce804fb1647fe1699b2f87efd01ea9f4efed8508 (opens in a new tab)