CPU exhaustion via compounded greedy quantifier backtracking
Published Jun 8, 2026 · Updated Jun 8, 2026
Regular expression denial of service in kokke tiny-regex-c allows local users to exhaust CPU through crafted patterns and failing input. The matchstar and matchplus routines greedily consume matching input, then repeatedly call matchpattern while backtracking across every candidate split; chained quantifiers compound the same failing paths. Exploitation requires control of a regex pattern or input reaching an existing vulnerable pattern, and the demonstrated consequence is prolonged CPU consumption in the embedding process.
Summary
What happened
Regular expression denial of service in kokke tiny-regex-c allows local users to exhaust CPU through crafted patterns and failing input. The matchstar and matchplus routines greedily consume matching input, then repeatedly call matchpattern while backtracking across every candidate split; chained quantifiers compound the same failing paths. Exploitation requires control of a regex pattern or input reaching an existing vulnerable pattern, and the demonstrated consequence is prolonged CPU consumption in the embedding process.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-11478
- Published
- Jun 8, 2026
- Updated
- Jun 8, 2026
- Vendor
- kokke
- Product
- tiny-regex-c
- Classifications
- CWE-400, CWE-1333, T1499.004
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jun 8, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Jun 8, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=f2632c6d9ed25272987471cdb8b70395c2460bdb
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
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.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- tiny-regex-c ReDoS proof of conceptproof of concept · demonstrated
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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