CVE-2026-66046
HIGHDescription
Expat through 2.8.3 contains a denial of service vulnerability caused by quadratic algorithmic complexity in the storeAtts() function in xmlparse.c, where processing N specified attributes with non-normalized values triggers an O(N^2) linear scan of elementType->defaultAtts to determine CDATA status. A remote unauthenticated attacker can supply a single well-formed XML document of a few megabytes to an application parsing untrusted XML to cause excessive CPU consumption, resulting in denial of service without requiring authentication, external entity resolution, or non-default parser options.
How to fix
This vulnerability affects an unusually large number of packages. The highest-confidence fixes are shown above; the full list is longer. Check the referenced advisories for complete coverage.
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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
Moderate risk: more likely to be exploited than 53% of all known CVEs.
References
Related Vulnerabilities
Other CWE-407 vulnerabilities, ordered by exploit likelihood. View all
| CVE | Severity | CVSS | EPSS | Exploited | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2020-27223 | Medium | 5.2 | 78% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2022-36021 | Medium | 5.5 | 60% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2021-33582 | High | 7.5 | 3.1% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2024-43485 | High | 7.5 | 3.1% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2024-43484 | High | 7.5 | 3.0% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2016-10396 | High | 7.5 | 2.9% | - | - |
Common questions
How do I fix CVE-2026-66046?
Published advisories record a fix for 16 affected products. The "How to fix" section on this page lists the fixed version and source advisory for each one, so apply the entry matching what you actually run.
Is CVE-2026-66046 being actively exploited?
Not that we know of. CVE-2026-66046 is not in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Its EPSS score of 0.74% is the estimated probability that it will be exploited in the next 30 days. That is higher than 53% of all scored CVEs.
How severe is CVE-2026-66046?
CVE-2026-66046 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.5, rated important. 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-2026-66046 affect?
Published advisories record a fix for expat (Debian), expat (Red Hat / RHEL), expat (Rocky), expat-debuginfo (Red Hat / RHEL), and 12 more. 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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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 2026-09-18.