Skip to content

PDF Parsing Trailer Infinite Loop (DoS)

Moderate
aclark4life published GHSA-r73j-pqj5-w3x7 Apr 23, 2026

Package

pip Pillow (pip)

Affected versions

>= 5.1.0, < 12.2.0

Patched versions

12.2.0

Description

Impact

An attacker can supply a malicious PDF that causes the process to hang indefinitely, consuming 100% CPU and making the application unresponsive.

Patches

Patched version: 12.2.0.

PdfParser (introduced in Pillow 5.1.0) follows Prev pointers in PDF trailers to read cross-reference sections. If a
trailer's Prev pointer references an offset that has already been processed — either pointing to itself or forming a
longer cycle — the parser enters an infinite loop. Pillow now tracks previously processed trailer offsets and raises an
error if a cycle is detected.

Workarounds

Use any version but the affected versions: >= 5.1.0, < 12.2.0

References

Severity

Moderate

CVE ID

CVE-2026-42310

Weaknesses

Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop')

The product contains an iteration or loop with an exit condition that cannot be reached, i.e., an infinite loop. Learn more on MITRE.

Credits