Vulnerability · Published Sep 1, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2026-83615xmldom: Quadratic-memory consumption
High 8.7
In plain English
A high-severity resource allocation without limits in xmldom from xmldom. Proof-of-concept exploit code is public. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.6% (higher than 48% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
xmldom is a pure JavaScript W3C standard-based (XML DOM Level 2 Core) DOMParser and XMLSerializer module. Prior to @xmldom/xmldom versions 0.8.15 and 0.9.12, and in xmldom versions 0.1.5 through 0.6.0, appendElement in lib/sax.js uses _copy to clone the complete currentNSMap for each nested element that declares a new namespace prefix. Keeping every ancestor map live on the parse stack creates quadratic peak namespace-map storage, so a small highly compressible XML document can exhaust the process heap before application validation. This issue is fixed in @xmldom/xmldom versions 0.8.15 and 0.9.12; no fixed version is available for xmldom.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:12 | node-xmldom | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-83615 |
| Debian:13 | node-xmldom | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-83615 |
| Debian:14 | node-xmldom | 0.9.12-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-83615 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | node-xmldom | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-83615 |
| Ubuntu:24.04:LTS | node-xmldom | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-83615 |
| Ubuntu:26.04:LTS | node-xmldom | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-83615 |
| Ubuntu:26.10 | node-xmldom | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-83615 |
| npm | @xmldom/xmldom | 0.8.15 | GHSA-965w-775f-mr7g |
| npm | @xmldom/xmldom | 0.9.12 | GHSA-965w-775f-mr7g |
| npm | xmldom | no fix listed | GHSA-965w-775f-mr7g |
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-770 · Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
References
- https://github.com/xmldom/xmldom/security/advisories/GHSA-965w-775f-mr7g x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/xmldom/xmldom/pull/1071 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/xmldom/xmldom/pull/1072 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/xmldom/xmldom/commit/954370f58c046223faf95ba77efcbc8ce014409d x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/xmldom/xmldom/commit/dabffe884e864eeecb1f515c716f875e1bc47ec1 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/xmldom/xmldom/releases/tag/0.8.15 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/xmldom/xmldom/releases/tag/0.9.12 x_refsource_MISC