CyberChef’s pretty-recipe parser vulnerable to client-side ReDoS / CPU exhaustion when parsing a malformed #recipe= URL
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- Denial of service
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · Low
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA. Impact type from CWE-1333.
Summary
CyberChef is a web app for encryption, encoding, compression, and data analysis. Prior to 11.3.0, CyberChef's pretty-recipe parser in src/core/Utils.mjs can exhaust client-side CPU when a malformed #recipe= URL fragment containing a large number of unmatched quote characters reaches Utils.parseRecipeConfig(). The function synchronously applies a complex global regular expression that may perform heavy backtracking before rejecting the input, causing the victim's browser tab to freeze during startup for seconds or longer. No code execution, data exfiltration, or privilege escalation occurs. This issue is fixed in version 11.3.0.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- No
- 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 CyberChef (gchq) Fixed in 11.3.0
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-72912
References
More gchq vulnerabilities
- TI-2026-41376 CyberChef: Prototype pollution in Series Chart operation CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.0
- TI-2025-18851 Stroom Authentication/Authorization Bypass when using AWS ALB CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.4
- TI-2018-16004 Stroom version <5.4.5 contains a XML External Entity (XXE) vulnerability in XML Parser… CVSS 3.0CRITICAL 10.0
- TI-2026-30894 Cross-site scripting in gchq CyberChef CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.2
- TI-2019-11632 CyberChef before 8.31.2 allows XSS in core/operations/TextEncodingBruteForce.mjs. CVSS 3.0MEDIUM 6.1
- TI-2019-08044 Cross-site scripting in stroom:stroom-app CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 6.1
Sources
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences