Description
file-type detects the file type of a file, stream, or data. Prior to 21.3.1, a denial of service vulnerability exists in the ASF (WMV/WMA) file type detection parser. When parsing a crafted input where an ASF sub-header has a size field of zero, the parser enters an infinite loop. The payload value becomes negative (-24), causing tokenizer.ignore(payload) to move the read position backwards, so the same sub-header is read repeatedly forever. Any application that uses file-type to detect the type of untrusted/attacker-controlled input is affected. An attacker can stall the Node.js event loop with a 55-byte payload. Fixed in version 21.3.1.
Scores
CVSS v3
5.3
EPSS
0.0003
EPSS Percentile
8.6%
Attack Vector
NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CISA SSVC
Vulnrichment
Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical Impact
partial
Details
CWE
CWE-835
Status
published
Products (1)
sindresorhus/file-type
13.0.0 - 21.3.1
Published
Mar 10, 2026
Tracked Since
Mar 11, 2026