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CVE-2026-73643: js-yaml: Exponential parsing time in the flow collections leads to denial of service

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-08-13 · updated 2026-10-24
• Weakness: CWE-407

Description

js-yaml is a JavaScript YAML parser and dumper. From 5.0.0 until 5.2.2, parsing a small YAML document can take exponential time when an application calls load() or loadAll() on untrusted input. In src/parser/parser.ts, readFlowCollection uses restoreState and calls parseNode a second time when a flow-sequence entry is recognized as a key: value pair. If the key is a nested flow sequence of the same shape, every level is parsed twice, causing O(2^n) work and allowing an input under 200 bytes to keep one CPU busy for minutes, block the Node.js event loop, and stall the process. No anchors, aliases, merges, tags, or nondefault options are required. This issue is fixed in version 5.2.2.

Affected products

• nodeca js-yaml: from 5.0.0, < 5.2.2

References

• https://github.com/nodeca/js-yaml/commit/3e5240f9cbe645ce5afb58524954a13c8539c853
• https://github.com/nodeca/js-yaml/security/advisories/GHSA-pm4m-ph32-ghv5
• https://github.com/nodeca/js-yaml/security/advisories/GHSA-pm4m-ph32-ghv5

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