CVE-2026-24001

Date: January 21, 2026

jsdiff is a JavaScript text differencing implementation. Prior to versions 8.0.3, 5.2.2, 4.0.4, and 3.5.1, attempting to parse a patch whose filename headers contain the line break characters "\r", "
", or "
" can cause the "parsePatch" method to enter an infinite loop. It then consumes memory without limit until the process crashes due to running out of memory. Applications are therefore likely to be vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack if they call "parsePatch" with a user-provided patch as input. A large payload is not needed to trigger the vulnerability, so size limits on user input do not provide any protection. Furthermore, some applications may be vulnerable even when calling "parsePatch" on a patch generated by the application itself if the user is nonetheless able to control the filename headers (e.g. by directly providing the filenames of the files to be diffed). The "applyPatch" method is similarly affected if (and only if) called with a string representation of a patch as an argument, since under the hood it parses that string using "parsePatch". Other methods of the library are unaffected. Finally, a second and lesser interdependent bug - a ReDOS - also exhibits when those same line break characters are present in a patch's patch header (also known as its "leading garbage"). A maliciously-crafted patch header of length n can take "parsePatch" O(n³) time to parse. Versions 8.0.3, 5.2.2, 4.0.4, and 3.5.1 contain a fix. As a workaround, do not attempt to parse patches that contain any of these characters: "\r", "
", or "
".