Uncontrolled Recursion in jq - CVE-2026-40612
Published: April 25, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU127880
CSH Severity: Low
CVSS v4.0: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Clear
CVE-ID: CVE-2026-40612
CWE-ID: CWE-674
Exploitation vector: Local access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vendor: stedolan (Stephen Dolan)
Affected software:
jq
jq
Detailed vulnerability description
The vulnerability allows a local user to cause a denial of service.
The vulnerability exists due to uncontrolled recursion in jv_contains when processing deeply nested arrays or objects through contains() or inside(). A local user can supply a specially crafted nested input structure to cause a denial of service.
In libjq embedded in larger applications, exploitation may corrupt adjacent memory on systems without stack guard pages or with heap-allocated thread stacks.
How to mitigate CVE-2026-40612
Cybersecurity Help is currently unaware of any official solution to address this vulnerability.