CPANSA-HTTP-Date-2026-14741: HTTP-Date vulnerability

Publisher giterlizzi Document category csaf_security_advisory
Initial release date 2026-07-17T00:00:00 Engine CSAF Perl Toolkit 0.26
Current release date 2026-07-17T00:00:00 Build Date
Current version 1 Status final
CVSS v3.1 Base Score Severity
Original language Language en
Also referred to

Vulnerability Description

HTTP::Date versions before 6.08 for Perl allow CPU exhaustion via polynomial regex backtracking in parse_date. parse_date() matches the date string against a chain of alternative regexes, and str2time() delegates to it. Several of these patterns place unbounded quantifiers next to each other before a trailing `\s*$` anchor. A valid date prefix followed by a long interior run of digits, letters, or whitespace and a single trailing byte that defeats the final match forces the engine to repartition the run, giving polynomial (about quadratic) backtracking. A header value of a few tens of kilobytes runs for tens of seconds of CPU. HTTP::Date parses timestamps such as HTTP `Date`, `Expires`, and `Last-Modified` headers, which commonly originate from untrusted sources. Any caller that passes an untrusted date header to str2time() or parse_date() can be driven to consume unbounded CPU, a denial of service.

Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-14741

Vulnerability Description

HTTP::Date versions before 6.08 for Perl allow CPU exhaustion via polynomial regex backtracking in parse_date.

parse_date() matches the date string against a chain of alternative regexes, and str2time() delegates to it. Several of these patterns place unbounded quantifiers next to each other before a trailing `\s*$` anchor. A valid date prefix followed by a long interior run of digits, letters, or whitespace and a single trailing byte that defeats the final match forces the engine to repartition the run, giving polynomial (about quadratic) backtracking. A header value of a few tens of kilobytes runs for tens of seconds of CPU.

HTTP::Date parses timestamps such as HTTP `Date`, `Expires`, and `Last-Modified` headers, which commonly originate from untrusted sources. Any caller that passes an untrusted date header to str2time() or parse_date() can be driven to consume unbounded CPU, a denial of service.

Weakness CWE-1333 : Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity

Product status

Known affected
Product Score
HTTP-Date less than 6.08
CVSS Version CVSS Vector CVSS Base Score CVSS Base Severity
Fixed

giterlizzi

Namespace: https://github.com/giterlizzi/

gdt@cpan.org

References

Revision history

Version Date of the revision Summary of the revision
1 Fri Jul 17 00:00:00 2026 First release

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