CVE-2026-15996
HIGHDescription
A denial of service vulnerability was identified in GitHub Enterprise Server that allowed an unauthenticated attacker to cause excessive CPU consumption and exhaust the pool of request-handling worker processes by sending a crafted form-encoded HTTP POST request containing deeply nested parameters. Because request parameters were parsed before routing and authentication, any POST endpoint could be used to trigger the condition, which could render the instance unresponsive. This vulnerability affected all versions of GitHub Enterprise Server prior to 3.21 and was fixed in versions 3.20.3, 3.19.7, 3.18.10, and 3.17.16.
How to fix
TridentStack Control can deploy fixes like this automatically across your Windows, macOS, and Linux fleet. See how it works
Remediation is compiled from vendor and distribution security advisories. Always confirm against the linked source for your exact version and platform.
CVSS v3 Vector
Exploitability
Impact
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Exploit Intelligence
Low risk: more likely to be exploited than 36% of all known CVEs.
References
Related Vulnerabilities
Other CWE-674 vulnerabilities, ordered by exploit likelihood. View all
| CVE | Severity | CVSS | EPSS | Exploited | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2021-45105 | Medium | 5.9 | 100% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2024-25111 | High | 8.6 | 65% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2023-50269 | High | 8.6 | 58% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2021-42697 | High | 7.5 | 36% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2018-0739 | Medium | 6.5 | 19% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2007-1285 | High | 7.5 | 18% | - | Fix |
Common questions
How do I fix CVE-2026-15996?
Upgrade enterprise server to 3.18.10 or later.
Is CVE-2026-15996 being actively exploited?
Not that we know of. CVE-2026-15996 is not in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Its EPSS score of 0.44% is the estimated probability that it will be exploited in the next 30 days. That is higher than 36% of all scored CVEs.
How severe is CVE-2026-15996?
CVE-2026-15996 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.5, rated high. CVSS rates the technical impact if the vulnerability is exploited, not how likely that is, so weigh it alongside the exploit-prediction score when you decide what to patch first.
What does CVE-2026-15996 affect?
Published advisories record a fix for enterprise server (NVD). Only products with a sourced advisory are listed, so treat this as what we can cite rather than a complete inventory.
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Markdown
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This product uses NVD data but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS scores courtesy of FIRST.org (https://www.first.org/epss). Source: CISA KEV Catalog. Data as of 2026-08-18.