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MEDIUM severity

Docling: Unsafe Archive Extraction and XML Parsing in METS-GBS BackendGHSA-r3xg-rg9j-67fv

MEDIUM

GHSA-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.

Also known asCVE-2026-44018PYSEC-2026-2144
Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Oct 13, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

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

via FIRST.org ↗
0.2%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs5th percentile — riskier than 5% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.22%0.44%0.66%0.1%0.1%0.2%0.2%Jul 26Oct 26Oct 26

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

How urgent is this, really

GHSA-r3xg-rg9j-67fv by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 388,997 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
🐍docling

Real-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, and no_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

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🐍PyPIdocling≥ 2.45.0&&< 2.91.02.91.0pip install --upgrade 'docling==2.91.0'

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations
Application
doclingdocling
≥ 2.45.0 && < 2.91.0
range

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    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.

  2. 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.

  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.

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.

Red HatModerate

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…

Workaround published by Red Hat
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)
ProductFixed inAdvisory
Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.4rhoai/odh-autorag-rhel9:1786612637RHSA-2026:60520

Frequently Asked Questions

### 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`, `
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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