Vulnerability in Oalders Http::date

CVE-2026-14741

HTTP::Date versions before 6.08 for Perl allow CPU exhaustion via polynomial regex backtracking in parse_date. parse_date() matches the date string against a chain of alternative regexes, and str2time() delegates to it. Several of these patterns place unbounded quantifiers next to each other before a trailing `\s*$` anchor. A valid date prefix followed by a long interior run of digits, letters, or whitespace and a single trailing byte that defeats the final match forces the engine to repartition the run, giving polynomial (about quadratic) backtracking. A header value of a few tens of kilobytes runs for tens of seconds of CPU. HTTP::Date parses timestamps such as HTTP `Date`, `Expires`, and `Last-Modified` headers, which commonly originate from untrusted sources. Any caller that passes an untrusted date header to str2time() or parse_date() can be driven to consume unbounded CPU, a denial of service.

Vulnerability class: ReDoS (Regular Expression Denial of Service)

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.006 (49.5th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 49th percentile — 49.5% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-14741: held from 0.004 to 0.006.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.004 · newest: 0.006 · change: +0.003

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-14741?
CVE-2026-14741 is a high-severity vulnerability in Oalders Http::date, classified under Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2026-07-17.
How severe is CVE-2026-14741?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.