# CVE-2026-93653: Poppler Splash backend denial of service in pattern fill

Source: https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-93653-poppler-splash-backend-denial-of-service-in-pattern-fill  
Publisher: Junglewise Threat Intelligence, https://junglewise.ai/threats  
Published: 2026-09-18. Updated: 2026-09-26  
License: CC BY 4.0 with a link back

CVE-2026-93653 · Severity: medium · CVSS 5.5 · Published 2026-09-18

Poppler is an open-source PDF rendering library widely used by document viewers and web applications to display PDF files. A flaw in Poppler's Splash rendering backend allows an attacker to craft a malicious PDF that forces the renderer into an infinite loop when processing tiling patterns, consuming 100% CPU and rendering the application unresponsive until the process is killed or times out.

## Quick answers

**Is CVE-2026-93653 exploited in the wild?** No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-93653 being exploited in the wild.

**How severe is CVE-2026-93653?** Medium severity, with a CVSS score of 5.5, published 18 September 2026.

**Which products and versions are affected?** Poppler Poppler <UNKNOWN>.

**Is there a fix for CVE-2026-93653?** No fixed version is recorded yet. Check the vendor's advisory in the references below. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.

**How is CVE-2026-93653 attacked?** It is attacked with local access.

**Am I affected by CVE-2026-93653?** Check whether anything you run is named in the advisory. 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.

## Technical details

This denial of service vulnerability exists in the SplashOutputDev::tilingPatternFill function, which fails to validate the repeat count for tiling-pattern geometry. A crafted PDF with tiling-pattern coordinates approaching the int32 boundary causes the function to compute an attacker-controlled repeat count that drives an excessively long loop in the pattern-fill scanline routine without corresponding memory allocation. The vulnerability is triggered locally when an application using Poppler's Splash backend processes the malicious PDF file; user interaction is required to open the file. An attacker can exploit this by distributing a specially crafted PDF that consumes arbitrary CPU resources, causing a denial of service. The root cause is unchecked input for loop condition (CWE-606).

## Affected products

- Poppler Poppler <UNKNOWN>

## Timeline

- 2026-09-18: disclosed

## References

- [https://access.redhat.com/downloads/content/package-browser/](https://access.redhat.com/downloads/content/package-browser/)
- [https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-93653](https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-93653)