Executive brief
Docling Core, a library used for document processing and data transformation, contains a vulnerability in how it handles image references. An attacker could provide a specially crafted document that forces the system to read sensitive local files or crash the application by consuming excessive memory. This could lead to the theft of private data or a disruption of document processing services.
Technical details
Docling Core versions 2.5.0 through 2.74.0 fail to properly validate image reference URIs, specifically allowing 'file://' schemes and 'data:' URIs without size limits. This vulnerability (CWE-73 and CWE-400) allows a remote attacker to perform local file inclusion (LFI) by referencing files readable by the process or trigger a denial-of-service (DoS) via memory exhaustion from large inline payloads. Exploitation requires the application to process untrusted document input containing these references. The issue is resolved in version 2.74.1, which blocks local file URIs by default and implements decoded-size limits for inline data.
Affected products
- docling-project docling-core >= 2.5.0, < 2.74.1
Timeline
- 2026-04-22: patched: Version 2.74.1 released
- 2026-06-02: advisory: GitHub Security Advisory published
- 2026-07-16: disclosed: CVE published to NVD