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VulnerabilityPublished Updated

CVE-2026-115822: Starman versions before 0.4019 for Perl allow CPU exhaustion via quadratic regex backtracking when

Affects starmanSource GCVE Database

0
Authoritative record:CVE-2026-115822· Medium

Not known to be exploited.

Data as of 28 Oct 2026, 22:31 UTC

Severity
Medium

Rated by Threat Radar · CVSS not yet scored by NVD

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 25 Oct 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

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
Ubuntu 26.10starmanpkg:deb/ubuntu/starman?arch=source&distro=stonkingOther threatsAffected
  • =0.4017-1build1
  • =0.4018-1
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 26.04 LTSstarmanpkg:deb/ubuntu/starman?arch=source&distro=resoluteOther threatsAffected
  • =0.4017-1
  • =0.4017-1build1
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSstarmanpkg:deb/ubuntu/starman?arch=source&distro=nobleOther threatsAffected
  • =0.4016-1
  • =0.4017-1
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 22.04 LTSstarmanpkg:deb/ubuntu/starman?arch=source&distro=jammyOther threatsAffected
  • =0.4015-1
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 20.04 LTSstarmanpkg:deb/ubuntu/starman?arch=source&distro=focalOther threatsAffected
  • =0.4014-3
  • =0.4015-1
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 18.04 LTSstarmanpkg:deb/ubuntu/starman?arch=source&distro=bionicOther threatsAffected
  • =0.4014-1
Fixed in–

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

Description

Starman versions before 0.4019 for Perl allow CPU exhaustion via quadratic regex backtracking when parsing chunked request bodies. Starman decodes chunked request bodies before calling the application, matching each chunk-size line with `s/^(([0-9a-fA-F]+).*\015\012)//`. A line of hex digits followed by a bare LF and then CRLF never matches, because `.` does not match LF, and each failed attempt backtracks in time quadratic in the length of the hex run. Nothing limits the length of the line. A remote attacker can exhaust worker CPU by sending such requests to any route.

References

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