CVE-2026-44018 — docling
MEDIUMCVE-2026-44018 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) CWE-409 vulnerability in docling. A fix is available for docling — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Docling: Unsafe Archive Extraction and XML Parsing in METS-GBS Backend
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-44018.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-44018 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,567 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
doclingReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
The METS-GBS backend's XML parsing and the input document format detection lacked security controls, enabling:
- XML External Entity (XXE) attacks to read local files or cause denial of service
- Decompression bombs (zip bombs) to exhaust memory and disk space
- Unbounded archive extraction consuming system resources
An attacker could craft malicious METS-GBS archives that, when processed, could read sensitive files, exhaust system resources, or cause application crashes.
Patches
Fixed in version 2.91.0. The fix implements:
- Secure XML parsing with
resolve_entities=False,load_dtd=False, andno_network=True - Configurable limits: 300 MB total extraction size, 10 MB per file, 1000 member count
- Cumulative size tracking across all extractions
- Early termination when limits are exceeded
- Secure format detection of METS-GBS tar archives with
_detect_mets_gbs()method: maximum file size (10 MB per file), maximum member count (1000 members), and exception handling to gracefully fail when limits are exceeded
Workarounds
Avoid processing METS-GBS archives from untrusted sources. If necessary, pre-validate archives in an isolated environment with resource limits.
References
- Fix release: v2.91.0
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | docling | ≥ 2.45.0&&< 2.91.0 | 2.91.0pip install --upgrade 'docling==2.91.0' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for docling, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update docling to 2.91.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-44018 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2026-44018 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-44018. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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.
The vulnerability in Docling, rated Moderate, allows for sensitive file disclosure and denial of service within Red Hat OpenShift AI when processing untrusted METS-GBS archives. This is due to insufficient security controls in the XML parsing and document format detection, which an attacker could exploit using crafted…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.4 | rhoai/odh-autorag-rhel9:1786612637 | RHSA-2026:60520 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-44018 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-44018 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.