VulnerabilityPublished 13 Nov 2026

CVE-2026-126190: Soup Sieve · Polynomial-time denial of service in the descendant combinator

Affects favaSource GCVE Database

Compare

Authoritative record:CVE-2026-126190· High 7.5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High · fixed in 4.0 : patch fava soon.

Data as of 13 Nov 2026, 21:55 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 4.0

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 12 Nov 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

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Homebrewfava`pkg:brew/fava`Other threats	Affected >=1.14	Fixed in–

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

AI-suggested

Upgrade to Soup Sieve version 4.0 or later, where the vulnerability is fixed by caching ancestor match results. No code changes are required beyond upgrading. If upgrading is not possible, reduce the use of descendant combinators in selectors on untrusted input, limit document size and nesting depth, or enforce time limits on selector processing. Avoid using the NOCACHE flag as it reverts to vulnerable behavior.

Description

CVE-2026-126190 is a denial-of-service vulnerability in Soup Sieve's handling of CSS descendant combinators. Matching selectors with descendant combinators against deeply nested documents causes polynomial-time complexity, leading to high CPU usage and potential service disruption. The issue affects applications that process untrusted HTML or XML documents using Soup Sieve versions prior to 4.0. The vulnerability is fixed in Soup Sieve 4.0 by introducing caching to reduce matching time to linear complexity.

Impact

Applications using Soup Sieve versions prior to 4.0 to run CSS selectors with descendant combinators on untrusted or attacker-controlled documents can experience denial of service due to excessive CPU consumption. This affects services such as scrapers, HTML sanitizers, or any system processing uploaded or fetched markup. Trusted documents are not affected. The vulnerability does not impact confidentiality or integrity, only availability.

Summary

Soup Sieve versions before 4.0 exhibit a polynomial-time denial of service when matching selectors containing descendant combinators (e.g., 'a b'). The matching algorithm walks up the ancestor chain for each element without caching, causing exponential growth in processing time proportional to the number of descendant combinators and document nesting depth. This can be exploited by an attacker controlling the input HTML or XML to cause high CPU usage for seconds to minutes with small, deeply nested documents. The flaw is fixed in version 4.0 by caching ancestor match results, reducing the complexity to linear time.

References

Community reviews

Loading reviews…

Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 13 Nov 2026, 21:55 UTC

Technical details

References

Community reviews

Related threats