LowGHSA-gxpj-cx7g-858cCVE-2017-16137

Regular Expression Denial of Service in debug

Published 9 Aug 2018 · Updated 10 Sept 2026

Affected packages

debugnpm

Affected: <2.6.9
Fixed in: 2.6.9

Update to the fixed version for your release line, for example:npm install debug@2.6.9

debugnpm

Affected: >=3.0.0 <3.1.0
Fixed in: 3.1.0

Update to the fixed version for your release line, for example:npm install debug@3.1.0

debugnpm

Affected: >=3.2.0 <3.2.7
Fixed in: 3.2.7

Update to the fixed version for your release line, for example:npm install debug@3.2.7

debugnpm

Affected: >=4.0.0 <4.3.1
Fixed in: 4.3.1

Update to the fixed version for your release line, for example:npm install debug@4.3.1

Details

Affected versions of debug are vulnerable to regular expression denial of service when untrusted user input is passed into the o formatter.

As it takes 50,000 characters to block the event loop for 2 seconds, this issue is a low severity issue.

This was later re-introduced in version v3.2.0, and then repatched in versions 3.2.7 and 4.3.1.

Recommendation

Version 2.x.x: Update to version 2.6.9 or later. Version 3.1.x: Update to version 3.1.0 or later. Version 3.2.x: Update to version 3.2.7 or later. Version 4.x.x: Update to version 4.3.1 or later.

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References

Advisory data from OSV.dev (opens OSV.dev in a new tab), refreshed daily.