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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.3

CVE-2026-40260 json

pypdf: Manipulated XMP metadata entity declarations can exhaust RAM

published 2026-04-10 6 mo ago modified 2026-11-02 6 d ago also GHSA-3crg-w4f6-42mx , PYSEC-2026-3006 , EUVD-2026-23327

cvss
5.3
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 36%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

pypdf is a free and open-source pure-python PDF library. In versions prior to 6.10.0, manipulated XMP metadata entity declarations can exhaust RAM. An attacker who exploits this vulnerability can craft a PDF which leads to large memory usage. This requires parsing the XMP metadata. This issue has been fixed in version 6.10.0.

Patch / fix

  • pypi pypdf 6.10.0
  • py-pdf pypdf 6.10.0
  • pypdf Debian 14 6.19.0-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-40260

  • python-PyPDF2 openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.11.1-9.1
  • python-pypdf openSUSE Tumbleweed 6.10.2-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:10582-1openSUSE-SU-2026:10583-1

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-2026-40260 updated cvss 6.5

pypdf: pypdf: Denial of Service due to memory exhaustion via manipulated XMP metadata

  • Red Hat Exploit Intelligence exploit-intelligence-tech-preview/vulnerability-analysis-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift Lightspeed openshift-lightspeed/lightspeed-ocp-rag-rhel9 Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 ansible-automation-platform-25/lightspeed-chatbot-rhel8 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI (RHEL AI) 3 rhelai3/bootc-cuda-rhel9, rhelai3/bootc-rocm-rhel9, rhelai3/bootc-gaudi-rhel9, rhelai3/disk-image-cuda-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) rhoai/odh-llama-stack-core-rhel9 Red Hat Quay 3 quay/quay-rhel8, quay/quay-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat OpenShift Lightspeed openshift-lightspeed-tech-preview/lightspeed-rag-tool-rhel9
    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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
6 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.42% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 36% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 6.9 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 4.0 6.9 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
NVD 3.1 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
GitHub 3.1 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
OSV 3.1 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi pypdf
<6.10.0
6.10.0

Affected products

  • py-pdf pypdf

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-776 Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs

References

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.