Medium [CVE-2026-67216] Denial of Service due to inefficient JSON object comparison
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-67216 affecting Red Hat Satellite 6.
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Summary
cJSON through 1.7.19 contains an inefficient algorithmic complexity flaw in cJSON_Compare(). When comparing objects, the function recurses into each shared subtree twice, once in each direction, with no depth guard, making the running time exponential in nesting depth.
A small, deeply nested document of a few hundred bytes (depth around 40) compared for equality consumes hours of CPU, and the cost roughly doubles with each additional level of nesting. An application that calls cJSON_Compare() on attacker-influenced JSON that is structurally equal to a reference document is exposed to a denial-of-service condition.
A flaw was found in cJSON. By providing specially crafted, deeply nested JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) objects for comparison, an attacker can consume excessive CPU resources, leading to the application becoming unresponsive for extended periods.
While upstream sources rate this flaw as High impact (CVSSv4 8.2), Red Hat evaluates this issue as Moderate impact (CVSS 5.9). This reflects a higher Attack Complexity (AC:H) and an impact strictly isolated to Availability (A:H), with zero effect on Confidentiality or Integrity (C:N, I:N).
Exploitation is narrowly constrained: an attacker cannot trigger resource exhaustion simply by submitting a deeply nested document to a standard JSON ingestion endpoint.
Affected product named by the advisory: Red Hat Satellite 6.
- 1.7.19
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 11 days ago·verify at source
Fixed versions
No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 11 days ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- Red Hat has investigated whether a possible mitigation exists for this issue, and has not been able to identify a practical example. Please update the affected package as soon as possible.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 11 days ago·verify at source
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