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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2026-116270 json

MIME::Words versions before 5.521 for Perl allow memory exhaustion via repeated "=?" sequences in decode_mimewords

published 12d ago modified 4d ago also EUVD-2026-112303

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 21%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

MIME::Words versions before 5.521 for Perl allow memory exhaustion via repeated "=?" sequences in decode_mimewords.

For each "=?" that does not start a complete encoded word, decode_mimewords appends an error message containing the whole input string to $@. A boundary of 8,000 "=?" pairs (16,000 bytes) adds 8,000 copies of itself to $@, about 128 MB.

From version 5.518, MIME::Parser decodes every multipart boundary this way, so a remote sender can exhaust the memory of the parsing process with one Content-Type header.

Patch / fix

  • cpan MIME-tools 5.521
  • libmime-tools-perl Debian 14 5.522-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-116270

  • perl-MIME-tools openSUSE Leap 16.0 5.522.0-bp160.1.1
  • perl-MIME-tools openSUSE Tumbleweed 5.522.0-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:22226-1openSUSE-SU-2026:12347-1

Is CVE-2026-116270 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-116270 updated cvss 7.5

perl-MIME-tools: perl-MIME-tools: Denial of Service via memory exhaustion from crafted MIME headers

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perl-MIME-tools 5.427-4.el6
    affected: no fix available

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
4d ago

Exploit prediction

0.29% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 21% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • cpan MIME-tools

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-407 Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity

References

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.