High severity · published Oct 28, 2026
CVE-2026-116795
RE2JS: Quadratic-time denial of service in re2js lookbehind matching
New
7.5
CVSS
–
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
RE2JS is the JavaScript port of RE2, a regular expression engine that provides linear time matching. From 2.2.0 until 2.8.7, enabling LOOKBEHINDS and using repeated matching through matcher().find(), matchAll(), split(), or matcher().replaceAll() can cause quadratic total work. Machine.match restarts lookbehind scanning from offset zero for each requested start position, while Matcher-based APIs request capture slots that prevent the early exit used for captureless matching. Dense matches therefore repeatedly rescan the input, allowing attacker-influenced text to monopolize a single-threaded worker and deny service. This issue is fixed in version 2.8.7.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
RE
re2js · le0pard
>= 2.2.0, < 2.8.7 · source: vendor