CVE-2026-49485CWE-1333CWE-400

HAPI FHIR: ReDoS via FHIRPath matches()/replaceMatches() in FHIR Validator HTTP Endpoint

High · published July 17, 2026

CVSS v3.1
7.5
EPSS
1%
Percentile
52.0
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

HAPI FHIR is a complete implementation of the HL7 FHIR standard for healthcare interoperability in Java. Prior to 6.9.9 and 6.9.4.2, all implementations of FHIRPathEngine accept arbitrary FHIRPath expressions and evaluate them without input validation, and the FHIRPath functions matches(), matchesFull(), and replaceMatches() pass user-controlled regular expressions to Java's Pattern.compile() and String.replaceAll() through an incomplete timeout utility. An attacker can send a resource containing an evil regex pattern that causes catastrophic backtracking, exhausting CPU resources and causing denial of service in the FHIR Validator HTTP endpoint and affected org.hl7.fhir.* modules. This issue is fixed in versions 6.9.9 and 6.9.4.2.

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
0.00684 · 52.0th percentile
Weaknesses
CWE-1333 · Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity; CWE-400 · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
Published
2026-07-17T20:59Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 17 JUL 20:59Z
    HAPI FHIR: ReDoS via FHIRPath matches()/replaceMatches() in FHIR Validator HTTP Endpoint
    cvelistv5