Medium 4.3Published Aug 10, 2026

CVE-2026-72912CyberChef’s pretty-recipe parser vulnerable to client-side ReDoS / CPU exhaustion when parsing a malformed #recipe= URL

Updated under an hour ago (2026-10-19 10:00 UTC)

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Exploited in the last 30 days

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.

CVSS: 4.3 MEDIUM (v3.1, CNA)CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Weakness (CWE): CWE-400, CWE-1333
Known exploited: Not in CISA's KEV catalog
EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days): Not loaded for this CVE
Assigned by: GitHub_M
NVD analysis: Deferred
Record last updated: Aug 12, 2026
First seen by InfoSec Signals: Oct 9, 2026

Affected products

Affected products

gchq CyberChef gchq:cyberchef (from the name)	before 11.3.0	CNA record

References

https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/security/advisories/GHSA-w74r-jxjh-gwr6x-refsource-confirm
https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/pull/2687x-refsource-misc
https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/commit/f77ddf489050b339faa978bb28da954bafd289aex-refsource-misc
https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/releases/tag/v11.3.0x-refsource-misc

The CVE record on cve.org NVD's entry

The CVE record is authoritative. Products marked “from the name” were identified from the CNA's free-text names, not a CPE, and are matched less certainly. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.