Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-78497 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-78497 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-78497?
- Informational severity, published 18 October 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- CPAN JQ::Lite before 2.51.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-78497?
- Yes: fixed in 2.51. Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is CVE-2026-78497 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a software library.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-78497?
- Check whether you run CPAN JQ::Lite at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
How to fix
- Fixed in: 2.51
Technical details
The vulnerability exists in JQ::Lite's regex compilation logic, which constructs patterns as qr'...' string literals and evaluates them with eval(), bypassing the requirement for 'use re "eval"'. An attacker can inject (?{ ... }) code blocks into patterns passed to test(), match(), or select() conditions to achieve arbitrary code execution. The fix replaces string eval with a safer qr/(?$modifiers:$pattern)/ approach.
Affected products
- CPAN JQ::Lite before 2.51
Timeline
- 2026-10-18: disclosed
- 2026-09-12: patched