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Medium

brace-expansion: Large numeric range defeats documented `max` DoS protection

  • Disclosed: 18.05.2026
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 10:22

The max option was being applied too late:

When expanding a single large numeric range like {1..10000000}, the sequence generation loop generates all 10 million intermediate elements before the max limit is applied With max=10, the output is correctly limited to 10 items, but the process still allocates ~505 MB and spends ~800ms building the full intermediate array.

Workaround

Ensure the string to be expanded doesn't contain more values than the desired max item count.

Affected software

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PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
npm package brace-expansion >= 5.0.0, < 5.0.6 5.0.6

References

CVSS score 6.5/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-400
Platform
npm
Package
brace-expansion
Disclosed
18.05.2026
Updated
11.10.2026 10:22

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-jxxr-4gwj-5jf2 - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: brace-expansion

All published vulnerabilities of this package (npm package), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

All (10) in the archive
Total entries
10
First → latest
01.2018 09.2026
Without a fix
0
Exploited in attacks
0

Severity breakdown

  • High 6
  • Medium 3
  • Low 1

Disclosures per year

Severity:
  1. brace-expansion: DoS via uncontrolled recursion on nested brace groups causing stack exhaustion
    High · 7.5 CVE-2026-102278 >= 4.0.0, < 5.0.11, >= 3.0.0, < 3.0.8, >= 2.0.0, < 2.1.6, < 1.1.20 5.0.11, 3.0.8, 2.1.6, 1.1.20
  2. brace-expansion: DoS via uncontrolled recursion in parseCommaParts causing stack exhaustion
    High · 7.5 CVE-2026-102276 >= 4.0.0, < 5.0.10, >= 3.0.0, < 3.0.7, >= 2.0.0, < 2.1.5, < 1.1.19 5.0.10, 3.0.7, 2.1.5, 1.1.19
  3. brace-expansion: DoS via unbounded intermediate arrays, bypassing the CVE-2026-14257 mitigation
    High · 7.5 CVE-2026-69152 < 1.1.18, >= 2.0.0, < 2.1.4, >= 3.0.0, < 3.0.6, >= 4.0.0, < 5.0.9 1.1.18, 2.1.4, 3.0.6, 5.0.9
  4. brace-expansion: DoS via unbounded expansion length causing an out-of-memory process crash
    High · 7.5 CVE-2026-14257 >= 4.0.0, < 5.0.8, >= 3.0.0, < 3.0.3, >= 2.0.0, < 2.1.3, < 1.1.17 5.0.8, 3.0.3, 2.1.3, 1.1.17
  5. brace-expansion: DoS via exponential-time expansion of consecutive non-expanding {} groups
    High · 5.3 CVE-2026-13149 >= 3.0.0, < 5.0.7, < 1.1.16, >= 2.0.0, < 2.1.2 5.0.7, 1.1.16, 2.1.2
  6. brace-expansion: Large numeric range defeats documented `max` DoS protection this entry
    Medium · 6.5 CVE-2026-45149 >= 5.0.0, < 5.0.6 5.0.6
  7. ReDoS in brace-expansion
    High · 7.5 CVE-2017-18077 < 1.1.7 1.1.7

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