CVE-2021-23343 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) vulnerability in path-parse. 3 public exploit references exist, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for path-parse — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Regular Expression Denial of Service in path-parse
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-23343 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,386 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
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.
path-parsenpmDescription
Affected versions of npm package path-parse are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) via splitDeviceRe, splitTailRe, and splitPathRe regular expressions. ReDoS exhibits polynomial worst-case time complexity.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | path-parse | all versions | 1.0.7npm install path-parse@1.0.7 |
Affected Products
path-parsepath-parse_projectResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for path-parse, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update path-parse to 1.0.7 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-23343 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
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.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
In Red Had Quay , whilst a vulnerable version of `path-parse` is included in the quay-rhel8 container it is a development dependency only, hence the impact by this vulnerability is low. In OpenShift Container Platform (OCP), the hadoop component which is a part of the OCP metering stack, ships the vulnerable version…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | nodejs:12-8040020210817133458.522a0ee4 | RHSA-2021:3623 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | nodejs:14-8040020210817165654.522a0ee4 | RHSA-2021:3666 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Extended Update Support | nodejs:12-8010020210817113128.c27ad7f8 | RHSA-2021:3639 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Extended Update Support | nodejs:12-8020020210817125332.4cda2c84 | RHSA-2021:3638 |
| Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | rh-nodejs14-nodejs-0:14.17.5-1.el7 | RHSA-2021:3280 |
| Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | rh-nodejs12-nodejs-0:12.22.5-1.el7 | RHSA-2021:3281 |
| Red Hat Virtualization Engine 4.4 | ovirt-engine-ui-extensions-0:1.2.7-1.el8ev | RHSA-2021:2865 |
| RHACS-3.67-RHEL-8 | advanced-cluster-security/rhacs-rhel8-operator:3.67.0-3 | RHSA-2021:4902 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-23343 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.