CVE-2026-55099
icalendar: Algorithmic Complexity in Equality
- State
- Published
- Severity
- 7.5 High
- Published
- Aug 25, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 26, 2026
- Reserved
- Jun 16, 2026
Description
icalendar is an RFC 5545 compatible parser and generator of iCalendar files for Python. From 7.1.0 until 7.1.3, the Component equality method in src/icalendar/cal/component.py compares nested subcomponents with two membership loops, and each membership test invokes the same method on child components, causing O(2^n) work relative to nesting depth. Component.from_ical accepts arbitrarily nested BEGIN:VEVENT blocks without a depth limit, so an attacker can submit a sub-kilobyte .ics file containing equal nested subtrees and trigger the cost when an application performs equality, inequality, membership, deduplication, test-assertion, round-trip, or normalization comparisons. Parsing alone does not trigger the issue, and comparisons that differ early short-circuit, but a few hundred bytes can pin a CPU core for minutes or indefinitely, causing denial of service in calendar sync or import endpoints, invite processing, and other comparison paths. This issue is fixed in version 7.1.3.
Scores
| CVSS | Score | Vector | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | 7.5 High | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H | GitHub_M |
Weaknesses
Affected Products
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
icalendarcollective |
|
References
- https://github.com/collective/icalendar/security/advisories/GHSA-cv84-9p8j-fj68
- https://github.com/collective/icalendar/commit/b6b2608ae3af6de40695b4e40f71847485aa0b49
- https://github.com/collective/icalendar/commit/cad40cd112c93fd142ec12cc5b37445a849b8a79
- https://github.com/collective/icalendar/releases/tag/v7.1.3
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/06/23/8
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