CVE-2026-33036CWE-776

fast-xml-parser affected by numeric entity expansion bypassing all entity expansion limits (incomplete fix for CVE-2026-26278)

High · published March 20, 2026

CVSS v3.1
7.5
EPSS
1%
Percentile
54.8
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

fast-xml-parser allows users to process XML from JS object without C/C++ based libraries or callbacks. Versions 4.0.0-beta.3 through 5.5.5 contain a bypass vulnerability where numeric character references (&#NNN;, &#xHH;) and standard XML entities completely evade the entity expansion limits (e.g., maxTotalExpansions, maxExpandedLength) added to fix CVE-2026-26278, enabling XML entity expansion Denial of Service. The root cause is that replaceEntitiesValue() in OrderedObjParser.js only enforces expansion counting on DOCTYPE-defined entities while the lastEntities loop handling numeric/standard entities performs no counting at all. An attacker supplying 1M numeric entity references like A can force ~147MB of memory allocation and heavy CPU usage, potentially crashing the process—even when developers have configured strict limits. This issue has been fixed in version 5.5.6.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
7.5 · HIGH
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00760 · 54.8th percentile
Weakness
CWE-776 · Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs ('XML Entity Expansion')
Published
2026-03-20T05:17Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 20 MAR 05:17Z
    fast-xml-parser affected by numeric entity expansion bypassing all entity expansion limits (incomplete fix for CVE-2026-26278)
    cvelistv5