cJSON JSON Patch copy/add Uncontrolled Recursion Stack Exhaustion
cJSON through 1.7.19 is vulnerable to uncontrolled recursion leading to stack exhaustion when an untrusted RFC 6902 JSON Patch is applied via cJSONUtils_ApplyPatches() or cJSONUtils_ApplyPatchesCaseSensitive(). A patch containing add and copy operations grafts duplicated subtrees to amplify document depth beyond the parser's nesting limit: cJSON_Delete() recurses with no depth bound, and the cJSON_Duplicate() guard CJSON_CIRCULAR_LIMIT is set to 10000, ten times the parser's 1000-level nesting limit and high enough to overflow a default thread stack. An attacker who can supply the patch document can crash the process, resulting in denial of service.
- Products
- Not specified
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- Not specified
- CVEs
- CVE-2026-67215
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 8 Nov 2026, 03:47 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
cJSON JSON Patch copy/add Uncontrolled Recursion Stack Exhaustion
core-osv · Original sourcePublished 29 Jul 2026, 13:32 UTC
cJSON through 1.7.19 is vulnerable to uncontrolled recursion leading to stack exhaustion when an untrusted RFC 6902 JSON Patch is applied via cJSONUtils_ApplyPatches() or cJSONUtils_ApplyPatchesCaseSensitive(). A patch containing add and copy operations grafts duplicated subtrees to amplify document depth beyond the parser's nesting limit: cJSON_Delete() recurses with no depth bound, and the cJSON_Duplicate() guard CJSON_CIRCULAR_LIMIT is set to 10000, ten times the parser's 1000-level nesting limit and high enough to overflow a default thread stack. An attacker who can supply the patch document can crash the process, resulting in denial of service.
osv:CVE-2026-67215
Complete source record
{
"id": "d1c95619dafe3fe8ea073ef1ff8c3cdc665dc45f821d472b2faf3ee451be3d52",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-67215",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "cJSON JSON Patch copy/add Uncontrolled Recursion Stack Exhaustion",
"summary": "cJSON through 1.7.19 is vulnerable to uncontrolled recursion leading to stack exhaustion when an untrusted RFC 6902 JSON Patch is applied via cJSONUtils_ApplyPatches() or cJSONUtils_ApplyPatchesCaseSensitive(). A patch containing add and copy operations grafts duplicated subtrees to amplify document depth beyond the parser's nesting limit: cJSON_Delete() recurses with no depth bound, and the cJSON_Duplicate() guard CJSON_CIRCULAR_LIMIT is set to 10000, ten times the parser's 1000-level nesting limit and high enough to overflow a default thread stack. An attacker who can supply the patch document can crash the process, resulting in denial of service.",
"evidence": "osv:CVE-2026-67215",
"products": [],
"severity": "high",
"structured": {
"id": "CVE-2026-67215",
"aliases": [
"CVE-2026-67215"
],
"metrics": [
{
"type": "CVSS_V4",
"score": "CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N"
}
],
"affected": [
{
"ranges": [
{
"repo": "https://github.com/davegamble/cjson",
"type": "GIT",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"last_affected": "c859b25da02955fef659d658b8f324b5cde87be3"
}
],
"database_specific": {
"extracted_events": [
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"last_affected": "1.7.19"
}
],
"source": "AFFECTED_FIELD",
"strategy": "StandardRange"
},
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"range": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"last_affected": "1.7.19"
}
],
"source": "CPE_RANGE"
}
]
}
}
],
"versions": [
"v1.7.19",
"v1.7.18",
"v1.7.17",
"v1.7.16",
"v1.7.15",
"v1.7.14",
"v1.7.13",
"v1.7.12",
"v1.7.11",
"v1.7.10",
"v1.7.9",
"v1.7.8",
"v1.7.7",
"v1.7.6",
"v1.7.5",
"v1.7.4",
"v1.7.3",
"v1.7.2",
"v1.7.1",
"v1.7.0",
"v1.6.0",
"v1.5.9",
"v1.5.8",
"v1.5.7",
"v1.5.6",
"v1.5.5",
"v1.5.4",
"v1.5.3",
"v1.5.2",
"v1.5.1",
"v1.5.0",
"v1.4.7",
"v1.4.6",
"v1.4.5",
"v1.4.4",
"v1.4.3",
"v1.4.2",
"v1.4.1",
"v1.4.0",
"v1.3.2",
"v1.3.1",
"v1.3.0",
"v1.2.1",
"v1.2.0",
"v1.1.0",
"v1.0.2",
"v1.0.1",
"v1.0.0",
"v0.0.0"
],
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2026-67215.json"
}
}
],
"modified": "2026-10-28T02:30:53.339594800Z",
"provider": "osv",
"references": [
"https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/67xxx/CVE-2026-67215.json",
"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-67215",
"https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/cjson-json-patch-copy-add-uncontrolled-recursion-stack-exhaustion",
"https://github.com/DaveGamble/cJSON/blob/v1.7.19/cJSON.c#L253-L261",
"https://github.com/DaveGamble/cJSON/blob/v1.7.19/cJSON_Utils.c#L906-L940",
"https://joshua.hu/cjson-json-parser-cve-vulnerabilities"
],
"provider_metadata": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-674"
],
"cna_assigner": "VulnCheck",
"osv_generated_from": "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/67xxx/CVE-2026-67215.json"
}
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2026-67215",
"evidence": "/id"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 522333,
"published_at": "2026-07-29T13:32:02.975+00:00"
}