{"id":"CVE-2026-26996","aliases":["GHSA-3ppc-4f35-3m26"],"url":"https://o3.security/vulnerability/CVE-2026-26996","summary":"minimatch has a ReDoS via repeated wildcards with non-matching literal in pattern","details":"### Summary\n`minimatch` is vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) when a glob pattern contains many consecutive `*` wildcards followed by a literal character that doesn't appear in the test string. Each `*` compiles to a separate `[^/]*?` regex group, and when the match fails, V8's regex engine backtracks exponentially across all possible splits.\n\nThe time complexity is O(4^N) where N is the number of `*` characters. With N=15, a single `minimatch()` call takes ~2 seconds. With N=34, it hangs effectively forever.\n\n\n### Details\n_Give all details on the vulnerability. Pointing to the incriminated source code is very helpful for the maintainer._\n\n### PoC\nWhen minimatch compiles a glob pattern, each `*` becomes `[^/]*?` in the generated regex. For a pattern like `***************X***`:\n\n```\n/^(?!\\.)[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?X[^/]*?[^/]*?[^/]*?$/\n```\n\nWhen the test string doesn't contain `X`, the regex engine must try every possible way to distribute the characters across all the `[^/]*?` groups before concluding no match exists. With N groups and M characters, this is O(C(N+M, N)) — exponential.\n### Impact\nAny application that passes user-controlled strings to `minimatch()` as the pattern argument is vulnerable to DoS. This includes:\n- File search/filter UIs that accept glob patterns\n- `.gitignore`-style filtering with user-defined rules\n- Build tools that accept glob configuration\n- Any API that exposes glob matching to untrusted input\n\n----\n\nThanks to @ljharb for back-porting the fix to legacy versions of minimatch.","published":"2026-02-20T03:05:21.105Z","modified":"2026-08-12T03:51:29.492945582Z","cvss":null,"epss":{"score":0.00519,"percentile":0.41293,"asOf":"2026-08-09"},"cisaKev":null,"exploitsKnown":0,"affectedPackages":[{"ecosystem":"npm","name":"minimatch","fixedVersion":"10.2.1"},{"ecosystem":"npm","name":"minimatch","fixedVersion":"9.0.6"},{"ecosystem":"npm","name":"minimatch","fixedVersion":"8.0.5"},{"ecosystem":"npm","name":"minimatch","fixedVersion":"7.4.7"},{"ecosystem":"npm","name":"minimatch","fixedVersion":"6.2.1"},{"ecosystem":"npm","name":"minimatch","fixedVersion":"5.1.7"},{"ecosystem":"npm","name":"minimatch","fixedVersion":"4.2.4"},{"ecosystem":"npm","name":"minimatch","fixedVersion":"3.1.3"}],"fix":{"url":"https://github.com/isaacs/minimatch/commit/2e111f3a79abc00fa73110195de2c0f2351904f5","label":"isaacs/minimatch@2e111f3"},"references":[{"type":"ADVISORY","url":"https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/26xxx/CVE-2026-26996.json"},{"type":"ADVISORY","url":"https://github.com/isaacs/minimatch/security/advisories/GHSA-3ppc-4f35-3m26"},{"type":"ADVISORY","url":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-26996"},{"type":"FIX","url":"https://github.com/isaacs/minimatch/commit/2e111f3a79abc00fa73110195de2c0f2351904f5"},{"type":"PACKAGE","url":"https://github.com/isaacs/minimatch"}],"provenance":{"sources":["OSV.dev","FIRST.org (EPSS)"],"lastVerified":"2026-08-12T03:51:29.492945582Z"}}