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CVE-2026-87819VulnerabilityPublished Updated

shallow-backup · GitPython: Denial of Service via catastrophic backtracking (ReDoS) in Actor.name_email_regex — commit author/committer

Affects shallow-backupSource GCVE Database

0
Authoritative record:CVE-2026-87819· High 8.7

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.7 High : upgrade to 6.6_7 soon.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:58 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score
8.7High
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.
EPSS
0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 43% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch
Available – fixed in 6.6_7
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

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 9 Sep 2026

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponised: no evidence on record.

    No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB

  4. Exploited in the wild: no evidence on record.

    Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation

  5. Observed by OffSeq 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 shallow-backup to 6.6_7.

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
Homebrewshallow-backuppkg:brew/shallow-backupOther threatsAffected
  • >=5.0.1 <6.6_7
Fixed in
  • 6.6_7

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

A fix is available for this vulnerability. Users should upgrade GitPython to a version that includes the patch addressing this ReDoS issue. Until patched, avoid processing untrusted git commit objects that may contain malformed author or committer fields. The vendor advisory or GitPython project repository should be consulted for the specific fixed version and update instructions.

Description

GitPython versions prior to the fix contain a Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) vulnerability in the Actor.name_email_regex pattern used to parse commit author and committer fields. This regex can cause catastrophic backtracking when processing a commit with a long string containing an unterminated '<' character, leading to CPU exhaustion proportional to the square of the input length. This can block GitPython API calls that access commit author or committer metadata for extended periods, impacting CI runners, code-hosting backends, and repository scanning tools that process untrusted commits.

References

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