Quick answers
- Is This vulnerability exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of This vulnerability being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is This vulnerability?
- Medium severity, with a CVSS score of 4.3, published 6 October 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- IBM Docling 2.45.0 to 2.130.x; IBM Docling-Slim 2.92.0 to 2.130.x; docling (PyPI) >= 2.45.0, < 2.131.0.
- Is there a fix for This vulnerability?
- Yes: fixed in docling 2.131.0, docling-slim 2.131.0. Until then: Reject gzip or tar inputs before they reach docling when METS-GBS support is not needed, and run conversions of untrusted input with memory limits. Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is This vulnerability attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a software library.
- Am I affected?
- Check whether you run IBM Docling, IBM Docling-Slim or docling (PyPI) 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: docling 2.131.0, docling-slim 2.131.0
Reject gzip or tar inputs before they reach docling when METS-GBS support is not needed, and run conversions of untrusted input with memory limits.
Technical details
The vulnerability exists in docling/datamodel/document.py and docling/backend/mets_gbs_backend.py, where tarfile.TarFile.getmembers() is called before enforcing max_member_count limits. An attacker can create a gzip-compressed tar with millions of empty members that compresses to kilobytes but expands to hundreds of megabytes in memory. Memory exhaustion occurs during format detection before allowed_formats restrictions are applied.
Affected products
- IBM docling 2.45.0 to 2.130.x
- IBM docling-slim 2.92.0 to 2.130.x
Timeline
- 2026-09-29: disclosed
- 2026-09-29: patched