cruft · GitPython: Denial of Service via catastrophic backtracking (ReDoS) in Actor.name_email_regex — commit author/committer
Affects cruftSource GCVE Database
Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.7 High : upgrade to 2.16.0_15 soon.
Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:41 UTC
- 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 2.16.0_15
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 9 Sep 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 cruft to 2.16.0_15.
Affected software
| Product | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
Homebrewcruftpkg:brew/cruftOther 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 fix for this vulnerability is available in GitPython version 3.1.60 or later. Users should upgrade to this version or later to remediate the issue. Until upgraded, avoid processing untrusted git repositories or commits that may contain malformed author or committer fields. There is no indication that the vendor considers this vulnerability already mitigated or requires no action. Therefore, upgrading is the recommended mitigation.
Description
GitPython versions prior to 3.1.60 contain a Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) vulnerability in the Actor.name_email_regex pattern used to parse commit author and committer fields. The vulnerable regex causes catastrophic backtracking when processing a commit with an author or committer string containing a long unterminated '<' character, leading to quadratic CPU time growth proportional to input length. This can cause significant CPU exhaustion and denial of service in any system using GitPython to read commit metadata from untrusted repositories.
References
- github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython/security/advisories/GHSA-g5vv-9gxw-82hx (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython/pull/2215 (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython/commit/751473a5f3221d6f989291cbebcc404353fd3ba8 (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython/releases/tag/3.1.60 (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/gitpython/PYSEC-2026-3984.yaml (opens in a new tab)
- vulncheck.com/advisories/gitpython-before-3.1.60-denial-of-service-via-redos (opens in a new tab)