GHSA-r3xg-rg9j-67fv — docling
MEDIUMGHSA-r3xg-rg9j-67fv 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 GHSA-r3xg-rg9j-67fv.
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
GHSA-r3xg-rg9j-67fv 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 379,145 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 GHSA-r3xg-rg9j-67fv 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.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-r3xg-rg9j-67fv can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-r3xg-rg9j-67fv. 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…
To mitigate this issue, avoid processing METS-GBS archives from untrusted or unverified sources. If processing such archives is unavoidable, ensure they are pre-validated within an isolated environment with strict resource limits to prevent resource exhaustion and unauthorized file access.Source: Red Hat security advisory for GHSA-r3xg-rg9j-67fv (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.4 | rhoai/odh-autorag-rhel9:1786612637 | RHSA-2026:60520 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-r3xg-rg9j-67fv in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-r3xg-rg9j-67fv across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.