CVE-2026-67215
HIGHcJSON JSON Patch copy/add Uncontrolled Recursion Stack Exhaustion
Title source: cnaDescription
cJSON through 1.7.19 is vulnerable to uncontrolled recursion leading to stack exhaustion when an untrusted RFC 6902 JSON Patch is applied via cJSONUtils_ApplyPatches() or cJSONUtils_ApplyPatchesCaseSensitive(). A patch containing add and copy operations grafts duplicated subtrees to amplify document depth beyond the parser's nesting limit: cJSON_Delete() recurses with no depth bound, and the cJSON_Duplicate() guard CJSON_CIRCULAR_LIMIT is set to 10000, ten times the parser's 1000-level nesting limit and high enough to overflow a default thread stack. An attacker who can supply the patch document can crash the process, resulting in denial of service.
References (4)
Core 4
Core References
Exploit exploit
Security vulnerabilities in the cJSON JSON parser (Joshua Rogers)
https://joshua.hu/cjson-json-parser-cve-vulnerabilities
Technical Description technical-description
cJSON_Delete unbounded recursion (cJSON.c)
https://github.com/DaveGamble/cJSON/blob/v1.7.19/cJSON.c#L253-L261
Technical Description technical-description
apply_patch copy/add duplicate-and-graft (cJSON_Utils.c)
https://github.com/DaveGamble/cJSON/blob/v1.7.19/cJSON_Utils.c#L906-L940
Third Party Advisory third-party-advisory
VulnCheck Advisory: cJSON JSON Patch copy/add Uncontrolled Recursion Stack Exhaustion
https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/cjson-json-patch-copy-add-uncontrolled-recursion-stack-exhaustion
Scores
CVSS v3
7.5
EPSS
0.0035
EPSS Percentile
27.2%
Attack Vector
NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CISA SSVC
Vulnrichment
Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical Impact
partial
Details
CWE
CWE-674
Status
published
Products (1)
DaveGamble/cJSON
< 1.7.19
Published
Jul 29, 2026
Tracked Since
Jul 29, 2026