CVE-2026-14895

HIGHCVSS 7.5/10EPSS 0.19%

Last modified

CVE-2026-14895 is a high-severity vulnerability rated 7.5/10 on the CVSS scale. String::Util versions before 1.36 for Perl are susceptible to a regular expression denial of service. The trim and rtrim functions stripped trailing whitespace with s/\s*$//u. Because \s* matches greedily and the $ anchor fails whenever a non-whitespace character follows the whitespace, the regex engine retries the match at each offset of a long whitespace run, producing quadratic backtracking. EPSS estimates a 0.19% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

Description

String::Util versions before 1.36 for Perl are susceptible to a regular expression denial of service. The trim and rtrim functions stripped trailing whitespace with s/\s*$//u. Because \s* matches greedily and the $ anchor fails whenever a non-whitespace character follows the whitespace, the regex engine retries the match at each offset of a long whitespace run, producing quadratic backtracking. The fix replaces \s*$ with \s+$. Any caller that passes untrusted input to trim or rtrim can trigger CPU exhaustion with a string containing a long run of whitespace.

Metrics

CVSS 3.1
7.5/10

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS Probability
0.19%

8.6th percentile

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days. Learn more

Weakness Enumeration

Affected Software

Source: CNA advisory (CVE.org). NVD analysis pending.

VendorProductVersions
BAKERSCOTString::Util< 1.36

References

Timeline

Published
Last Modified
Status
Deferred

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2026-14895?
String::Util versions before 1.36 for Perl are susceptible to a regular expression denial of service. The trim and rtrim functions stripped trailing whitespace with s/\s*$//u. Because \s* matches greedily and the $ anchor fails whenever a non-whitespace character follows the whitespace, the regex engine retries the match at each offset of a long whitespace run, producing quadratic backtracking. The fix replaces \s*$ with \s+$. Any caller that passes untrusted input to trim or rtrim can trigger CPU exhaustion with a string containing a long run of whitespace.
How severe is CVE-2026-14895?
CVE-2026-14895 has a CVSS score of 7.5/10 (HIGH severity). The EPSS model estimates a 0.19% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.
How do I fix CVE-2026-14895?
Check the vendor references and advisories linked above for patched versions and mitigation guidance. You can also run a Strix scan to test if your systems are affected.

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Source: NVD / NIST