High severity · published Sep 1, 2026
CVE-2026-83606
xmldom PI grammar regex ReDoS: quadratic backtracking on unterminated processing instructions
8.7
CVSS
0.5%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
xmldom is a pure JavaScript W3C standard-based (XML DOM Level 2 Core) DOMParser and XMLSerializer module. From 0.9.0-beta.9 until 0.9.11, the processing-instruction production in lib/grammar.js lets the greedy S+ separator and lazy Char*? data group repeatedly repartition a long whitespace tail when the required closing ?> is absent. Both parsePI and parseProcessingInstruction apply the expression to the entire remaining source, causing quadratic backtracking during DOMParser.parseFromString() under default options and allowing a small unauthenticated XML input to stall the Node.js event loop. This issue is fixed in @xmldom/xmldom version 0.9.11.
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.5% · higher than 44% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
XM
xmldom · xmldom
>= 0.9.0-beta.9, < 0.9.11 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-83606
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-83606
github.com
https://github.com/xmldom/xmldom/commit/73df6b8bdbd86f904b9e8c3ab9c49aa54ef2802e
github.com
https://github.com/xmldom/xmldom/pull/1039
github.com
https://github.com/xmldom/xmldom/releases/tag/0.9.11
github.com
https://github.com/xmldom/xmldom/security/advisories/GHSA-g53g-w8rj-fmg7
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