CVE-2023-52425
HighCVSS 7.5Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
High risk82th percentile - higher than 82% of all known CVEs
Summary
libexpat through 2.5.0 allows a denial of service (resource consumption) because many full reparsings are required when a large token needs multiple buffer fills.
Risk Assessment
An attacker can remotely cause CPU and memory exhaustion in applications using libexpat, resulting in denial of service.
Recommendation
Update libexpat to a version newer than 2.5.0 that limits the number of reparsings.
Other vulnerabilities in libexpat
See all- CVE-2026-113351Medium
libexpat 2.7.2 through 2.9.0 contains a denial of service vulnerability because XML_ParserReset zeroes the direct byte count but never offsets tracked heap allocations. Attackers can submit a large XML document so later documents on the same reset parser fail with XML_ERROR_NO_MEMORY until it is recreated.
- CVE-2026-102633Medium
libexpat versions 2.7.2 through 2.8.5 contain an integer overflow vulnerability in the expat_realloc() function on 32-bit platforms when computing allocation sizes. Attackers supplying malicious XML to applications parsing with vulnerable libexpat can cause heap buffer overflow, memory corruption, or denial of service.
- CVE-2024-45490High
An issue was discovered in libexpat before 2.6.3, where xmlparse.c does not reject a negative length for XML_ParseBuffer.
- CVE-2017-11742High
The writeRandomBytes_RtlGenRandom function in xmlparse.c in libexpat versions 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 on Windows allows local users to gain privileges via a Trojan horse ADVAPI32.DLL in the current working directory due to an untrusted search path, known as DLL hijacking.
- CVE-2024-45492Critical
An issue was discovered in libexpat before version 2.6.3, which can lead to an integer overflow in the nextScaffoldPart function in xmlparse.c on 32-bit platforms.
- CVE-2024-45491Critical
An issue was discovered in libexpat before version 2.6.3 related to integer overflow in the dtdCopy function in xmlparse.c. This issue occurs on 32-bit platforms where UINT_MAX equals SIZE_MAX.
- CVE-2019-15903High
In libexpat before 2.2.8, crafted XML input could fool the parser into changing from DTD parsing to document parsing too early; a consecutive call to XML_GetCurrentLineNumber (or XML_GetCurrentColumnNumber) then resulted in a heap-based buffer over-read.
- CVE-2017-9233High
XML External Entity vulnerability in libexpat 2.2.0 and earlier allows attackers to put the parser in an infinite loop using a malformed external entity definition from an external DTD.
- CVE-2026-118370Medium
libexpat through 2.9.0 contains a signed integer overflow vulnerability in storeAtts() in lib/xmlparse.c that allows attackers to trigger out-of-bounds writes via oversized attribute counts. Attackers can supply a multi-gigabyte document with a start tag carrying over 2^30 attributes to overflow attIndex and nPrefixes, crashing applications or corrupting heap memory.
- CVE-2026-117610Medium
libexpat through 2.9.0 contains a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in externalEntityInitProcessor2() in lib/xmlparse.c that mishandles the XML_TOK_NONE token from empty input. Attackers who control stream chunking can force an empty non-final first parse on an external entity subparser, causing a later parse to crash the application.
Original NVD description (English source)
libexpat through 2.5.0 allows a denial of service (resource consumption) because many full reparsings are required in the case of a large token for which multiple buffer fills are needed.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS

