XXE in Docling

CVE-2026-44020

Docling simplifies document processing by parsing diverse formats and providing integrations with the generative AI ecosystem. From 2.13.0 until 2.74.0, the USPTO patent XML parser used the standard xml.sax.parseString() without protection against XML External Entity (XXE) attacks. An attacker could craft malicious USPTO patent XML files with external entity references that could read arbitrary files from the server filesystem, perform Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) attacks, or cause denial of service through entity expansion (Billion Laughs attack). The vulnerability affects three USPTO patent format parsers: ICE (v4.x), Grant v2.5, and Application v1.x. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.74.0.

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 (46.6th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 47th percentile — 46.6% 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-2026-44020: held from 0.006 to 0.006.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.006 · newest: 0.006 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-44020?
CVE-2026-44020 is a high-severity vulnerability in Docling, classified under Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs (XML Entity Expansion). CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2026-06-24.
How severe is CVE-2026-44020?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.