mholt PapaParse papaparse.js redos

published 2020-09-04 6 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-qvjc-g5vr-mfgr , EUVD-2023-0378

cvss: 3.5; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 1.4%; EPSS 1.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 73%
public exploits: 0; none known

A vulnerability was found in mholt PapaParse up to 5.1.x. It has been classified as problematic. Affected is an unknown function of the file papaparse.js. The manipulation leads to inefficient regular expression complexity. Upgrading to version 5.2.0 is able to address this issue. The name of the patch is 235a12758cd77266d2e98fd715f53536b34ad621. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component. The identifier of this vulnerability is VDB-218004.

Patch / fix

fixed in 2 distros 1 links 3

npm papaparse 5.2.0
papaparse papaparse 5.2.0

mediawiki Debian 12 1:1.39.4-1~deb12u1
mediawiki Debian 14, Debian 13 1:1.39.4-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-36649

github.com/mholt/PapaParse@235a127 commit
github.com/mholt/PapaParse#779 pull request
github.com/mholt/PapaParse/releases/tag/5.2.0 release

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2020-36649 updated 2025-11-21 cvss 7.5

papaparse: RegExp used to detect numbers is vulnerable to ReDoS

Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh 2.1 servicemesh-grafana Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 grafana, grafana-loki, grafana-mssql, grafana-mysql, grafana-selinux, grafana-graphite, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 grafana, grafana-selinux
not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

1.43% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 73% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

github.com https://github.com/mholt/PapaParse/issues/777 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	3.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CNA	3.0	3.5	CVSS:3.0/AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CNA	2.0	2.3	AV:A/AC:M/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:P
NVD	3.1	7.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
GitHub	3.1	7.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem	package	affected	fixed in
npm	papaparse	<5.2.0	5.2.0

Affected products

mholt PapaParse

Classification

Weakness

CWE-1333 Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity
CWE-185 Incorrect Regular Expression

References

github.com /mholt/PapaParse/pull/779
issue-tracking, web, patch, third-party-advisory
github.com /mholt/PapaParse/commit/235a12758cd77266d2e98fd715f53536b34ad621
patch, web, third-party-advisory
github.com /mholt/PapaParse/releases/tag/5.2.0
patch, web, release-notes, third-party-advisory
github.com /mholt/PapaParse/issues/777
issue-tracking, web, exploit, third-party-advisory
vuldb.com /?id.218004
vdb-entry, technical-description, web, permissions-required, third-party-advisory
vuldb.com /?ctiid.218004
signature, permissions-required, web, third-party-advisory
nvd.nist.gov /vuln/detail/CVE-2020-36649
advisory
github.com /mholt/PapaParse
package
snyk.io /vuln/SNYK-JS-PAPAPARSE-564258
web

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary