Regular Expression Denial of Service in minimatch

published 2018-05-31 8 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-hxm2-r34f-qmc5 , EUVD-2018-0621

cvss: 7.5; version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 1.5%; EPSS 1.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 74%
public exploits: 0; none known

Minimatch is a minimal matching utility that works by converting glob expressions into JavaScript `RegExp` objects. The primary function, `minimatch(path, pattern)` in Minimatch 3.0.1 and earlier is vulnerable to ReDoS in the `pattern` parameter.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 distros 2

npm minimatch 3.0.2

debian ubuntu

node-minimatch Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 3.0.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-10540

node-minimatch Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 0.2.12-1ubuntu0.1~esm2
node-minimatch Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 1.0.0-1ubuntu0.1~esm2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2016-10540

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Exploit prediction

1.47% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 74% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

nodesecurity.io https://nodesecurity.io/advisories/118 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	3.0	7.5	CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD	2.0	5.0	AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
GitHub	3.0	7.5	CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem	package	affected	fixed in
npm	minimatch	<3.0.2	3.0.2

Affected products

HackerOne minimatch node module

Classification

Weakness

CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

References

nodesecurity.io /advisories/118
exploit, third-party-advisory
nvd.nist.gov /vuln/detail/CVE-2016-10540
advisory
github.com /advisories/GHSA-hxm2-r34f-qmc5
advisory
npmjs.com /advisories/118
web

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary