High severity · published Feb 20, 2026
CVE-2026-26996
minimatch has a ReDoS via repeated wildcards with non-matching literal in pattern
7.5
CVSS
0.6%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
minimatch is a minimal matching utility for converting glob expressions into JavaScript RegExp objects. Versions 10.2.0 and below are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) when a glob pattern contains many consecutive * wildcards followed by a literal character that doesn't appear in the test string. Each * compiles to a separate [^/]*? regex group, and when the match fails, V8's regex engine backtracks exponentially across all possible splits. The time complexity is O(4^N) where N is the number of * characters. With N=15, a single minimatch() call takes ~2 seconds. With N=34, it hangs effectively forever. Any application that passes user-controlled strings to minimatch() as the pattern argument is vulnerable to DoS. This issue has been fixed in version 10.2.1.
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?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.6% · higher than 47% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
MI
minimatch · isaacs
< 10.2.1 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-26996
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-26996
Patch
https://github.com/isaacs/minimatch/commit/2e111f3a79abc00fa73110195de2c0f2351904f5
Exploit
https://github.com/isaacs/minimatch/security/advisories/GHSA-3ppc-4f35-3m26
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