CVE-2026-33671
March 26, 2026
Impact "picomatch" is vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) when processing crafted extglob patterns. Certain patterns using extglob quantifiers such as "+()" and "()", especially when combined with overlapping alternatives or nested extglobs, are compiled into regular expressions that can exhibit catastrophic backtracking on non-matching input. Examples of problematic patterns include "+(a|aa)", "+(|?)", "+(+(a))", "(+(a))", and "+(+(+(a)))". In local reproduction, these patterns caused multi-second event-loop blocking with relatively short inputs. For example, "+(a|aa)" compiled to "^(?:(?=.)(?:a|aa)+)$" and took about 2 seconds to reject a 41-character non-matching input, while nested patterns such as "+(+(a))" and "(+(a))" took around 29 seconds to reject a 33-character input on a modern M1 MacBook. Applications are impacted when they allow untrusted users to supply glob patterns that are passed to "picomatch" for compilation or matching. In those cases, an attacker can cause excessive CPU consumption and block the Node.js event loop, resulting in a denial of service. Applications that only use trusted, developer-controlled glob patterns are much less likely to be exposed in a security-relevant way. Patches This issue is fixed in picomatch 4.0.4, 3.0.2 and 2.3.2. Users should upgrade to one of these versions or later, depending on their supported release line. Workarounds If upgrading is not immediately possible, avoid passing untrusted glob patterns to "picomatch". Possible mitigations include: - disable extglob support for untrusted patterns by using "noextglob: true" - reject or sanitize patterns containing nested extglobs or extglob quantifiers such as "+()" and "*()" - enforce strict allowlists for accepted pattern syntax - run matching in an isolated worker or separate process with time and resource limits - apply application-level request throttling and input validation for any endpoint that accepts glob patterns Resources - Picomatch repository: https://github.com/micromatch/picomatch - "lib/parse.js" and "lib/constants.js" are involved in generating the vulnerable regex forms - Comparable ReDoS precedent: CVE-2024-4067 ("micromatch") - Comparable generated-regex precedent: CVE-2024-45296 ("path-to-regexp")
Affected Packages
https://github.com/micromatch/picomatch.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=4.0.1 <4.0.4Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 4.0.4https://github.com/micromatch/picomatch.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=1.0.1 <2.3.2Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 2.3.2https://github.com/micromatch/picomatch.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=3.0.0 <3.0.2Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 3.0.2picomatch (NPM):
Affected version(s) >=4.0.0 <4.0.4Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 4.0.4picomatch (NPM):
Affected version(s) >=3.0.0 <3.0.2Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 3.0.2picomatch (NPM):
Affected version(s) >=1.0.0 <2.3.2Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 2.3.2Related Resources (3)
Do you need more information?
Contact UsCVSS v4
Base Score:
8.7
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Attack Requirements
NONE
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Vulnerable System Confidentiality
NONE
Vulnerable System Integrity
NONE
Vulnerable System Availability
HIGH
Subsequent System Confidentiality
NONE
Subsequent System Integrity
NONE
Subsequent System Availability
NONE
CVSS v3
Base Score:
7.5
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Weakness Type (CWE)
Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity