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PostCSS: Quadratic complexity in flat selector parsing allows CPU exhaustion

Type: advisorySource: OSV1 source record

### Impact `.` and `#` are not word delimiters in the tokenizer, so a flat selector such as `.a.a.a...` reaches `splitWord()` as a single word token carrying n class or id indexes. Three passes scanned those index arrays linearly for every index, making the parse O(n^2) in the number of indexes rather than in input length: `uniqs()`, the `indices.forEach` loop, and the Sass-interpolation filter. Parsing a 400 KB flat selector took ~34 s on a modern laptop, fully occupying a single thread. A benign selector of identical byte size parses in tens of milliseconds, so the cost is driven by the index count, not the input size. The nesting depth of such a selector is 0, so the `maxNestingDepth` guard added in 7.1.3 offers no protection. Reachability is deployment dependent. Only consumers that parse untrusted, attacker-supplied selectors synchronously in a request path are exposed, for example CSS sanitizers, CSS-in-JS services and online playgrounds. Ordinary build-time use on trusted sources is not affected. ### Patches Fixed in 7.1.6. The three passes now use Set membership tests, making parsing linear in the number of indexes. There is no behaviour change: parsing is byte-identical on a differential corpus of 8413 selectors. ### Workarounds Cap the size of selectors accepted from untrusted sources before parsing.

Announced Source revision 1
Original source ↗

GHSA-rj75-hqrm-r3gf

Primary source · Revision 1

Imported from structured advisory data. Source references identify upstream records or fields; verify affected versions and your deployed configuration.

Security context

Source reference: osv:GHSA-rj75-hqrm-r3gf

postcss-selector-parser

Source reference: /affected/0/package/name

Affected versions
Not stated in this record
Fixed versions
7.1.6

Source reference: /affected/0/ranges

Prerequisites
Not stated in this record

Structured affected-version data

Original package identities and version rules from this source.

[
  {
    "ranges": [
      {
        "type": "SEMVER",
        "events": [
          {
            "introduced": "0"
          },
          {
            "fixed": "7.1.6"
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "package": {
      "name": "postcss-selector-parser",
      "purl": "pkg:npm/postcss-selector-parser",
      "ecosystem": "npm"
    },
    "database_specific": {
      "source": "https://github.com/github/advisory-database/blob/main/advisories/github-reviewed/2026/10/GHSA-rj75-hqrm-r3gf/GHSA-rj75-hqrm-r3gf.json"
    }
  }
]
Related CVEs
CVE-2026-104844

Source reference: /aliases

Publisher severity

medium

Source reference: /severity/0/score

Linked CVE context

These ratings describe the referenced vulnerabilities and products. They are not a severity rating for every application using this dependency.

CVE-2026-104844 · Medium

postcss-selector-parser

Event
#85853 · Revision 1
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Publisher date
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