CVE-2026-118772VulnerabilityPublished 5 Nov 2026Updated 13 Nov 2026

Red Hat Security Advisory: Red Hat Hardened Images RPMs Security Update

Affects Red HatSource GCVE Database

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Authoritative record:CVE-2026-118772· High 7.5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High : upgrade Red Hat to 18.3.1 soon.

Data as of 13 Nov 2026, 14:31 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.5High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

Thin evidence

One scorer or none

CVSS scores by source
CNA (GitHub_M)	CVSS 3.1	7.5

Patch: Available – fixed in 18.3.1

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 29 Oct 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: 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 13 Nov 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade joi to 18.3.1.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
hapijsjoi	Affected >=16.0.0 <=17.1.1 >=18.0.0 <18.3.1	Fixed in 18.3.1
@hapijoi	Affected >=16.0.0 <=17.1.1	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

Currently, no mitigation or fix meeting Red Hat's criteria for ease of use, deployment, applicability, and stability is available. Applying restrictive payload length limits on inputs processed by multi-address email validation rules may reduce exposure but is not an official mitigation.

Description

A denial of service vulnerability exists in the joi library's email validation rule when configured to validate multiple addresses. The inefficient regular expression used for splitting input strings can be exploited by a remote attacker submitting inputs with long runs of whitespace, causing excessive CPU consumption and stalling the Node.js event loop. This affects Red Hat Hardened Images RPMs that embed joi for payload validation in various web dashboards and containerized services.

Impact

An unauthenticated remote attacker can cause severe CPU exhaustion by submitting crafted inputs to vulnerable joi email validation endpoints, resulting in denial of service by stalling the Node.js event processing. This impacts availability of affected services embedding joi for payload validation. There is no impact on confidentiality or integrity reported.

Summary

CVE-2026-118772 is a denial of service vulnerability in the joi library used by Red Hat Hardened Images RPMs, specifically in the multi-address email validation rule. The flaw arises from an inefficient regular expression that, when processing inputs with long whitespace sequences, causes excessive CPU usage due to backtracking. This can stall the single-threaded Node.js event loop, leading to denial of service. Exploitation requires an exposed endpoint that processes untrusted data with multi-address email rules without restrictive payload length limits. Red Hat has issued an advisory and updated RPMs (grafana13.2-13.2.4-0.7.hum1) but currently no mitigation or fix meeting their standards is available.

CWE-1333Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: High
The product uses a regular expression with a worst-case computational complexity that is inefficient and possibly exponential.
Architecture and Design
Use regular expressions that do not support backtracking, e.g. by removing nested quantifiers.
System Configuration
Set backtracking limits in the configuration of the regular expression implementation, such as PHP's pcre.backtrack_limit. Also consider limits on execution time for the process.
Implementation
Do not use regular expressions with untrusted input. If regular expressions must be used, avoid using backtracking in the expression.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
File Upload (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.1.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Regular Expression Exponential Blowup (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 13 Nov 2026, 14:31 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-1333

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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