CVE-2026-49461

Analyzed Analyzed - Analysis Complete

Memory Exhaustion in pypdf via Malicious PDF

Publication date: 2026-06-22

Last updated on: 2026-06-25

Assigner: GitHub, Inc.

Description

pypdf is a free and open-source pure-python PDF library. Prior to 6.12.2, an attacker who uses this vulnerability can craft a PDF which leads to large memory usage. This requires extracting the text of a page which contains a form XObject with self-references. This vulnerability is fixed in 6.12.2.

CVSS Scores

EPSS Scores

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Meta Information

Published

2026-06-22

Last Modified

2026-06-25

Generated

2026-07-13

AI Q&A

2026-06-23

EPSS Evaluated

2026-07-11

NVD

CVE-2026-49461

Affected Vendors & Products

Vendor	Product	Version / Range
pypdf_project	pypdf	to 6.12.2 (exc)

Helpful Resources

Exploitability

CWE

KEV

CWE ID	Description
CWE-400	The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.

Attack-Flow Graph

Executive Summary

This vulnerability exists in the pypdf library, a pure-python PDF library. Before version 6.12.2, an attacker could craft a specially designed PDF file that contains a form XObject with self-references. When the text extraction process is performed on such a page, it leads to excessive memory usage.

The issue is fixed in version 6.12.2 of pypdf.

Impact Analysis

The vulnerability can cause large memory usage when processing crafted PDF files. This could potentially lead to denial of service conditions if an application using pypdf attempts to extract text from malicious PDFs, as the excessive memory consumption might degrade system performance or cause crashes.

Mitigation Strategies

To mitigate this vulnerability, you should upgrade the pypdf library to version 6.12.2 or later, where the issue has been fixed.

Compliance Impact

The provided information does not specify any direct impact of this vulnerability on compliance with common standards and regulations such as GDPR or HIPAA.

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