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HIGH severity

CVE-2018-20801 — highcharts

HIGHFix: highcharts/highcharts@7c547e1

CVE-2018-20801 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-185 vulnerability in highcharts. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for highcharts — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Regular Expression Denial of Service in highcharts

Also known asGHSA-xmc8-cjfr-phx3
Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
1 known
Exploitation data as of Oct 28, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
3.2%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs88th percentile — riskier than 88% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%1.33%2.65%3.98%0.7%3.2%Apr 26Aug 26Oct 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2018-20801 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 397,508 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected

How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.

1Kother npm packages depend on this — each one inherits the vulnerability until it's patched upstream
highchartsnpm
3.5Mdownloads / week

Description

Versions of highcharts prior to 6.1.0 are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS). Untrusted input may cause catastrophic backtracking while matching regular expressions. This can cause the application to be unresponsive leading to Denial of Service.

Recommendation

Upgrade to version 6.1.0 or higher.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
📦npmhighchartsall versions6.1.0npm install highcharts@6.1.0

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations
Application
highchartshighcharts
< 6.1.0
range
Exploits & PoCs
1

Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.

In js/parts/SvgRenderer.js in Highcharts JS before 6.1.0, the use of bac…

snyk.ioNVDJul 2019

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for highcharts, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update highcharts to 6.1.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2018-20801 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.

Frequently Asked Questions

Versions of `highcharts` prior to 6.1.0 are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS). Untrusted input may cause catastrophic backtracking while matching regular expressions. This can cause the application to be unresponsive leading to Denial of Service. ## Recommendation Upgrade to version 6.1.0 or higher.
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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CVE-2018-20801: highcharts DoS — Fixed in 6.1.0