Regular expression denial of service in OALDERS HTTP::Date
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- Denial of service
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · High
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CISA ADP. Fix status from CNA. Impact type from CWE-1333.
Summary
HTTP::Date versions before 6.08 for Perl allow CPU exhaustion via polynomial regex backtracking in parse_date. parse_date() matches the date string against a chain of alternative regexes, and str2time() delegates to it. Several of these patterns place unbounded quantifiers next to each other before a trailing `\s*$` anchor. A valid date prefix followed by a long interior run of digits, letters, or whitespace and a single trailing byte that defeats the final match forces the engine to repartition the run, giving polynomial (about quadratic) backtracking. A header value of a few tens of kilobytes runs for tens of seconds of CPU. HTTP::Date parses timestamps such as HTTP `Date`, `Expires`, and `Last-Modified` headers, which commonly originate from untrusted sources. Any caller that passes an untrusted date header to str2time() or parse_date() can be driven to consume unbounded CPU, a denial of service.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- Yes
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA HTTP::Date (OALDERS) Fixed in 6.08
Vendor assessments
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-14741
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-mcqf-9rr5-v7rw
- 2026-10-28 EPSS moved to the 50th–90th percentile
- 2026-11-06 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
- 2026-11-06 CVSS score added · Red Hat
References
More OALDERS vulnerabilities
- TI-2026-07425 OS command injection in OALDERS HTTP::Daemon CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.1
- TI-2026-07753 Use after free in OALDERS HTML::Entities CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-07361 Insufficiently protected credentials in OALDERS LWP::UserAgent CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 6.5
- TI-2026-07568 Deserialization of untrusted data in OALDERS WWW::Mechanize::Cached CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.3
Sources
- CVE-2026-14741 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-14741 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-mcqf-9rr5-v7rw · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-14741 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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