Executive brief
A vulnerability in the path-to-regexp library, which is used to handle web application routing, can allow an attacker to crash a service. By providing specific inputs that trigger complex internal calculations, an attacker can cause the system to become unresponsive, leading to a denial of service. This affects various enterprise tools including Red Hat's Ansible Automation Platform and Trusted Artifact Signer.
Technical details
The path-to-regexp library (prior to version 8.4.0) suffers from a Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) vulnerability. When the library processes route patterns containing multiple sequential optional groups (using curly brace syntax like {a}{b}{c}), it generates a regular expression that grows exponentially in complexity. An attacker can exploit this by providing inputs that trigger this exponential growth, leading to uncontrolled resource consumption (CWE-400) and CPU exhaustion (CWE-1333). The vulnerability is reachable over the network without authentication if user-controlled input is passed into route patterns. The issue is fixed in version 8.4.0.
Affected products
- OpenJS Foundation path-to-regexp < 8.4.0
- Red Hat Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer (RHTAS)
- Red Hat Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
- Red Hat Red Hat Developer Hub
Timeline
- 2026-03-26: disclosed
- 2026-03-26: advisory
- 2026-04-23: patched: Red Hat issued patches for RHTAS via RHSA-2026:10153
References
- https://cna.openjsf.org/security-advisories.html
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:10153
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:10172
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:10175
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:13545
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:13826
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:17789