CVE-2026-77755
Received Received - Intake

Denial-of-Service in MISP-STIX via Malformed STIX Documents

Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-77755, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.

Publication date: 2026-08-21

Last updated on: 2026-08-21

Assigner: CIRCL

Description

A denial-of-service vulnerability was identified in misp-stix when processing attacker-controlled STIX 1 or STIX 2 documents. The STIX import code used sys.exit() to handle several parsing and loading failures. Because SystemExit inherits from BaseException rather than Exception, these failures bypassed the exception handlers used by callers of the library. As a result, a malformed STIX document could terminate a long-running importer process instead of returning a recoverable parsing error. Additionally, no limit was imposed on the size of STIX documents before parsing. A submitted document was therefore read and materialised in memory before its validity or type was evaluated. Depending on the document and parsing path, processing could consume approximately two to seven times the input size in memory, allowing a sufficiently large STIX document to cause excessive memory and CPU consumption and potentially terminate or severely degrade the importing service. An attacker able to provide STIX content to a MISP-STIX import workflow could exploit either condition to affect availability. A malformed document could cause abnormal process termination through an uncaught SystemExit, while a large document could exhaust resources during deserialisation and conversion. The fixes replace process-terminating sys.exit() calls with catchable exceptions such as STIXLoadingError and MissingSTIXContentError, and extend exception handling around the complete STIX detection and conversion process. The importer also now enforces an input-size limit before parsing. The default maximum is 100 MB, can be adjusted by callers, and can explicitly be disabled when required. STIX 1 inputs are additionally checked for the expected root element before the complete XML tree is constructed. ImpactSuccessful exploitation can cause: * termination of a long-running MISP-STIX importer; * excessive memory allocation; * excessive CPU consumption; * degradation or temporary unavailability of services relying on the converter; * interruption of batch or automated STIX ingestion workflows.

CVSS Scores

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Meta Information

Published
2026-08-21
Last Modified
2026-08-21
Generated
2026-08-21
AI Q&A
2026-08-21
EPSS Evaluated
N/A
NVD
EUVD

Affected Vendors & Products

Showing 1 associated CPE
Vendor Product Version / Range
misp misp-stix to 2026-77755 (inc)

Helpful Resources

Exploitability

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

Attack-Flow Graph

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Executive Summary

CVE-2026-77755 is a denial-of-service vulnerability in misp-stix that occurs when processing attacker-controlled STIX 1 or STIX 2 documents. The issue stems from two problems: first, the code used sys.exit() to handle parsing failures, which terminated processes instead of returning recoverable errors because SystemExit inherits from BaseException. Second, there was no input size limit before parsing, allowing large documents to consume excessive memory and CPU resources during deserialization.

Detection Guidance

Monitor for abnormal process termination or excessive resource usage during STIX document processing. Check logs for sys.exit calls or uncaught exceptions in misp-stix import workflows. Use system monitoring tools like top, htop, or ps to detect high CPU or memory consumption during STIX import operations.

Impact Analysis

An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by providing a malformed or oversized STIX document to a MISP-STIX import workflow. This could terminate long-running importer processes, exhaust system resources like memory and CPU, degrade or temporarily disable services relying on the converter, and interrupt automated STIX ingestion workflows.

Compliance Impact

This vulnerability primarily impacts availability of services processing STIX documents. While not directly violating GDPR or HIPAA, prolonged service unavailability could lead to non-compliance with data processing timelines or security incident response requirements. The resource exhaustion could also potentially affect integrity of data processing workflows if batch ingestion is interrupted.

Mitigation Strategies

Update misp-stix to the latest patched version to replace sys.exit with catchable exceptions and enforce input size limits. Configure the maximum input size to 100 MB or lower based on your environment. Review and update exception handling in STIX import workflows to ensure proper error recovery.

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