CVE-2021-21236Public exploit

Conversion hang via overlapping RGB regex groups

Published Jan 6, 2021 · Updated Aug 3, 2024

Regular expression denial of service in Kozea CairoSVG before 2.5.1 allows attackers to hang SVG conversion via a malicious SVG. The RGB and RGBA patterns in cairosvg/colors.py combine whitespace quantifiers with a lazy capture group, causing cubic backtracking when an rgb() value contains a long run of spaces without a closing parenthesis. A victim or consuming application must process the attacker-controlled file; exploitation pins the conversion process at full CPU for a prolonged period.

CVSS severity5.7
Medium
EPSS probability1.47%
Next 30 days · Sep 16, 2026
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Based on sourced intelligence
Hinoki checkNot available
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Summary

What happened

Regular expression denial of service in Kozea CairoSVG before 2.5.1 allows attackers to hang SVG conversion via a malicious SVG. The RGB and RGBA patterns in cairosvg/colors.py combine whitespace quantifiers with a lazy capture group, causing cubic backtracking when an rgb() value contains a long run of spaces without a closing parenthesis. A victim or consuming application must process the attacker-controlled file; exploitation pins the conversion process at full CPU for a prolonged period.

The record

CVE
CVE-2021-21236
Published
Jan 6, 2021
Updated
Aug 3, 2024
Vendor
Kozea
Product
CairoSVG
Classifications
CWE-400, T1499.004
Attack vector
Unavailable
Privileges
Unavailable

Timeline

How it unfolded

  1. Jan 6, 2021CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
  2. Aug 3, 2024Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.

Exploitability

Present is not the same as exploitable

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Is a vulnerable build present?

Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.

  1. Affected versionversion=< 2.5.1

What conditions does exploitation require?

Attack vectorUnavailable in this record.
Required privilegesUnavailable in this record.

What is affected?

Kozea · CairoSVGversion=< 2.5.1

Published CVSS scores

5.5NIST NVDCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
4.3NIST NVDAV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
5.7GitHub, Inc.CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.

Attacks

What attackers are doing with it

Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.

Daily unique IPsNo honeypot observations are available for this CVE in the selected window.

No observations available

Sep 10, 2026Sep 16, 2026
Latest reporting daySep 16, 2026
Latest daily unique IPsUnavailable
Prior 30-day averageUnavailable
SourceShadowserver honeypots (KEV)
VectorUnavailable
PrivilegesUnavailable
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Public exploitPublished

Weakness, pattern, technique

CWE-400Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
T1499.004Application or System Exploitation

Public exploit references

Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.

Technologies

Your stack

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Your stack

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