Vulnerability in Bakerscot String::util
CVE-2026-14895
String::Util versions before 1.36 for Perl are susceptible to a regular expression denial of service. The trim and rtrim functions stripped trailing whitespace with s/\s*$//u. Because \s* matches greedily and the $ anchor fails whenever a non-whitespace character follows the whitespace, the regex engine retries the match at each offset of a long whitespace run, producing quadratic backtracking. The fix replaces \s*$ with \s+$. Any caller that passes untrusted input to trim or rtrim can trigger CPU exhaustion with a string containing a long run of whitespace.
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 (48.6th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 49th percentile — 48.6% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.006 · newest: 0.006 · change: 0.000
Affected products
- Bakerscot String::util — versions 0
Weakness classification (CWE)
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-14895?
- CVE-2026-14895 is a high-severity vulnerability in Bakerscot String::util, classified under Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2026-07-07.
- How severe is CVE-2026-14895?
- High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.