CVE-2026-13221

Perl versions before 5.40.5-RC1, from 5.41.0 before 5.42.3-RC1, from 5.43.0 before 5.43.10 produce silently incorrect regular expression matches when an alternation of more than 65535 fixed string branches is compiled into a trie in Perl_study_chunk

State
Published
Severity
9.1 Critical
Published
Jul 13, 2026
Updated
Sep 8, 2026
Reserved
Jun 24, 2026

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Description

Perl versions before 5.40.5-RC1, from 5.41.0 before 5.42.3-RC1, from 5.43.0 before 5.43.10 produce silently incorrect regular expression matches when an alternation of more than 65535 fixed string branches is compiled into a trie in Perl_study_chunk.

When such branches are combined into a trie, the delta between the first branch and the shared tail is stored in a 16-bit field. A branch count above 65535 overflows the field, and the trie's match decision table is truncated with no warning or error.

A pattern of this shape produces false positive matches (matching strings it should not) and false negative matches (failing to match strings it should). When such a pattern gates an access or filtering decision, the result is wrong.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.19.1 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:HCISA-ADP

Weaknesses

  • CWE-190 Integer Overflow or Wraparound

Affected Products

ProductVersions
perl
  • before 5.40.5-RC1Affected
  • 5.41.0 to before 5.42.3-RC1Affected
  • 5.43.0 to before 5.43.10Affected

References

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