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Regular Expression Denial of Service in semver

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published Oct 24, 2017 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Mar 3, 2026

Package

npm semver (npm)

Affected versions

>= 1.0.4, < 4.3.2

Patched versions

4.3.2

Description

Versions 4.3.1 and earlier of semver are affected by a regular expression denial of service vulnerability when extremely long version strings are parsed.

Recommendation

Update to version 4.3.2 or later

References

Published by the National Vulnerability Database Jan 23, 2017
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Oct 24, 2017
Reviewed Jun 16, 2020
Last updated Mar 3, 2026

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS score

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

This score estimates the probability of this vulnerability being exploited within the next 30 days. Data provided by FIRST.
(78th percentile)

Weaknesses

Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity

The product uses a regular expression with an inefficient, possibly exponential worst-case computational complexity that consumes excessive CPU cycles. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2015-8855

GHSA ID

GHSA-x6fg-f45m-jf5q

Source code

Credits

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