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Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity in path-to-regexp

CVE-2026-4867

  • path-to-regexp
Severity High
Score 7.5/10

Summary

A bad regular expression is generated any time you have three or more parameters within a single segment, separated by something that is not a period (.). For example, /:a-:b-:c or /:a-:b-:c-:d. The backtrack protection added in [email protected] only prevents ambiguity for two parameters. With three or more, the generated lookahead does not block single separator characters, so capture groups overlap and cause catastrophic backtracking. Upgrade to [email protected] Custom regex patterns in route definitions (e.g., /:a-:b([^-/]+)-:c([^-/]+)) are not affected because they override the default capture group. Workarounds: All versions can be patched by providing a custom regular expression for parameters after the first in a single segment. As long as the custom regular expression does not match the text before the parameter, you will be safe. For example, change /:a-:b-:c to /:a-:b([^-/]+)-:c([^-/]+). If paths cannot be rewritten and versions cannot be upgraded, another alternative is to limit the URL length. All versions prior to 0.1.13 are affected.

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • NONE
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • HIGH

CWE-1333 - Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity

The product uses a regular expression with an inefficient, possibly exponential worst-case computational complexity that consumes excessive CPU cycles.

Advisory Timeline

  • Published