High · published August 31, 2026
HTML::FormFu versions through 2.08 for Perl allow resource exhaustion via an unbounded repeat count from the query string in Repeatable elements.
When a Repeatable element has counter_name set, its process method reads the repeat count from the named query string parameter, checks only that it is a positive integer, and passes it to repeat, which deep-clones the element's child subtree once per iteration. Nothing caps the value, and no attribute lets an application impose a limit.
The count is read on every request, before the form decides whether it was submitted, so a plain GET reaches the clone loop with no credentials, no session and no request body. Nesting multiplies: a Repeatable inside a Repeatable takes a counter at each level, so an outer and an inner value of 100 build 10,000 clones.
Once the form is submitted, each cloned field's constraints scan the whole element tree in _find_field_value, so cost grows faster than linearly with the count. A single request exhausts memory and CPU.
The latest release on CPAN is 2.07, from 2018. Version 2.08 exists only in the git repository.