Medium severity · published Sep 28, 2026
CVE-2026-102277
brace-expansion: Quadratic-time expansion of the `{a},b}` rewrite causes CPU denial of service
5.3
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
The brace-expansion library generates arbitrary strings containing a common prefix and suffix. Prior to 1.1.21, 2.1.7, 3.0.9, and 5.0.12, the expand function handles untrusted {a},b}-shaped patterns with many trailing closing braces by restarting its scan once for each trailing closing brace. The successive full-input rescans with linear working-string growth cause quadratic CPU time and memory pressure that can block the Node.js event loop. The process eventually recovers, making the impact a recoverable CPU denial of service. This issue is fixed in versions 1.1.21, 2.1.7, 3.0.9, and 5.0.12.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 36% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
BR
brace-expansion · juliangruber
>= 4.0.0, < 5.0.12; >= 3.0.0, < 3.0.9; >= 2.0.0, < 2.1.7; < 1.1.21 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-102277
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-102277
x_refsource_CONFIRM
https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/security/advisories/GHSA-q2hr-2g5m-vwhr
x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/commit/33a5ef17b8d800bbfa8c52b14c39043b6aac1a96
x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/commit/bdff773f98e5988616b7039cc9b508df5d640b22
x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/commit/c55e67d8d8b1c56a2474afff15c2891166b2d364
x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/commit/ffdfa3e3806bed17c0874b8f1439b084de354a7e
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