vulnerability / NVI-00016036 / Revision 1
pyasn1: Quadratic complexity in OBJECT IDENTIFIER and RELATIVE-OID processing allows denial of service
GitHub lists this reviewed advisory for pyasn1. Published version ranges and source prerequisites are shown below; this is not an inspection of a visitor’s application.
This report has not inspected your inventory, configuration, deployed build, reachability or evidence. A catalog listing and a severity score do not establish exposure or compromise.
01 / Meaning
Why it matters
Published affected context helps an owner decide what evidence to gather. This report has not examined your application.
7.5 high
GitHub source severity; exploitability and local consequence require separate evidence.
As of · GitHub Advisory Database
02 / Applicability
The affected context
Affected versions, configuration prerequisites and known exclusions are public. Confirm each one against the deployed service.
pyasn1
source listed<= 0.6.3
### Impact The BER/CER/DER decoders process OBJECT IDENTIFIER and RELATIVE-OID values in quadratic time relative to the number of arcs. A small crafted payload (tens of kilobytes) containing an OID with many arcs consumes seconds of CPU per decode() call, allowing denial of service in any application that decodes untrusted ASN.1 data (certificates, LDAP, SNMP, Kerberos, etc.). The corresponding encoders have the same quadratic behavior, reachable when an application re-encodes previously decoded attacker-supplied values. The arc-size limit introduced for CVE-2026-23490 bounds the byte length of an individual arc but not the number of arcs, so it does not mitigate this issue. ### Affected components ObjectIdentifierPayloadDecoder and RelativeOIDPayloadDecoder in pyasn1/codec/ber/decoder.py; ObjectIdentifierEncoder and RelativeOIDEncoder in pyasn1/codec/ber/encoder.py. The CER and DER codecs inherit these and are equally affected. ### Patches Fixed in pyasn1 0.6.4: arc accumulation in both decoders and encoders now runs in linear time. ### Workarounds Limit the size of untrusted ASN.1 input before decoding.
03 / Response
What to do next
- investigate
Identify the exact component and deployed version, examine the linked publisher’s conditions, and retain evidence of any mitigation.
Confirm current vendor support, compatibility and deployment evidence. This report has not tested a fix in your system. GitHub Advisory Database
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Check current vendor support and compatibility. After making a change, verify the deployed build and relevant runtime conditions. Keep the evidence, owner and time. An updated lockfile alone does not prove what is running.
04 / Limits
What this report cannot establish
- Customer inventory, deployment, reachability and exploitation have not been inspected.
05 / Provenance
Sources you can inspect
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- GHSA-8ppf-4f7h-5ppj ↗
GitHub Advisory Database · vendor advisory
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Public revision history
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- Revision 1 ·
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