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VulnerabilityPublished

CVE-2026-126192: Soup Sieve · General sibling combinator inside :has() matches untrusted HTML in quadratic time

Affects pyspellingSource GCVE Database

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Authoritative record:CVE-2026-126192· Medium 6.3

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.3 Medium : upgrade to 2.13 when convenient.

Data as of 13 Nov 2026, 21:33 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score
6.3Medium
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 4.06.3
Patch
Available – fixed in 2.13
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 12 Nov 2026

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponized: 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 13 Nov 2026.

What to do

Upgrade pyspelling to 2.13.

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
Homebrewpyspellingpkg:brew/pyspellingOther threatsAffected
  • >=2.9 <2.13
Fixed in
  • 2.13

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 in Soup Sieve version 2.13. Users should upgrade to version 2.13 or later to resolve this performance issue. Additionally, users should avoid applying selectors with general sibling combinators inside :has() on untrusted or large HTML inputs. Using more constrained combinators like > or + inside :has() can reduce traversal costs. Input containing :has selectors can be scanned and rejected if necessary. Wrapping selector evaluation calls in timeouts can prevent long-running CPU consumption. The vendor notes that quadratic time complexity in some :has() scenarios is expected behavior and not a bug, so careful selector design is recommended.

Description

CVE-2026-126192 describes a performance issue in the Soup Sieve library where using a CSS selector with a general sibling combinator (~) inside :has() on untrusted HTML causes quadratic time complexity. This can lead to significant CPU consumption and application stalls when processing HTML with many sibling elements. The issue affects versions >=2.9 and <2.13 of the library and has been fixed in version 2.13. The vulnerability impacts availability by allowing an attacker to cause high CPU usage with crafted input. Mitigations include avoiding such selectors on untrusted input, using more constrained combinators inside :has(), scanning user input for risky selectors, or applying timeouts to selector evaluation.

References

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