jq: Unbounded Recursion in jv_setpath(), jv_getpath() and delpaths_sorted() (jqlang jq)

CVE-2026-33947
MEDIUM 6.2

At a glance

Source
NVD
EPSS
EPSS 0.23 % · percentile 14 ()
State
PUBLISHED
Published
Updated
Assigner
GitHub_M
NVD status
Analyzed

Description

jq is a command-line JSON processor. In versions 1.8.1 and below, functions jv_setpath(), jv_getpath(), and delpaths_sorted() in jq's src/jv_aux.c use unbounded recursion whose depth is controlled by the length of a caller-supplied path array, with no depth limit enforced. An attacker can supply a JSON document containing a flat array of ~65,000 integers (~200 KB) that, when used as a path argument by a trusted jq filter, exhausts the C call stack and crashes the process with a segmentation fault (SIGSEGV). This bypass works because the existing MAX_PARSING_DEPTH (10,000) limit only protects the JSON parser, not runtime path operations where arrays can be programmatically constructed to arbitrary lengths. The impact is denial of service (unrecoverable crash) affecting any application or service that processes untrusted JSON input through jq's setpath, getpath, or delpaths builtins. This issue has been addressed in commit fb59f1491058d58bdc3e8dd28f1773d1ac690a1f.

Weaknesses (CWE)

  • CWE-674 — Uncontrolled Recursion

References

Scores

VersionScoreVectorScored by
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 6.2CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HGitHub_M
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 6.2CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HNVD · security-advisories@github.com (Secondary)
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.5CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HNVD · nvd@nist.gov (Primary)

European references

CERT-FR advisories

Affected configurations (NVD CPE)

Affected products

ProductVersions
jqlang · jqaffected < fb59f1491058d58bdc3e8dd28f1773d1ac690a1f

Sources

SourceLicence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVDENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
CERT-FR (ANSSI)Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feedsPublic domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD