Vulnerability from bitnami_vulndb
Published
2026-08-17 05:47
Modified
2026-08-17 06:10
Summary
Quadratic Behavior in xml.etree.ElementPath Index Predicates
Details

Element.findall() and fully-consumed Element.iterfind() exhibit O(n^2) time complexity when using XPath index predicates (e.g. [1], [last()], [last()-N]) on XML documents with many same-tag siblings. Element.find() is only affected when the first match is near the end  of the sibling list, such as with [last()] or [last()-N];  .//item[1] short-circuits after the first match.

To clipboard 

{
  "affected": [
    {
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Bitnami",
        "name": "libpython",
        "purl": "pkg:bitnami/libpython"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "3.13.15"
            },
            {
              "introduced": "3.14.0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "3.14.7"
            }
          ],
          "type": "SEMVER"
        }
      ],
      "severity": [
        {
          "score": "CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:H/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X",
          "type": "CVSS_V4"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [
    "CVE-2026-6879"
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "cpes": [
      "cpe:2.3:a:python:python:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
    ],
    "severity": "Low"
  },
  "details": "`Element.findall()` and fully-consumed `Element.iterfind()` exhibit `O(n^2)` time complexity when using XPath index predicates (e.g. `[1]`, `[last()]`, `[last()-N]`) on XML documents with many same-tag siblings. `Element.find()` is only affected when the first match is near the end\u00a0 of the sibling list, such as with `[last()]` or `[last()-N]`;\u00a0 `.//item[1]` short-circuits after the first match.",
  "id": "BIT-libpython-2026-6879",
  "modified": "2026-08-17T06:10:32.268Z",
  "published": "2026-08-17T05:47:19.661Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/02c08e6b747ac43d0d866a4ffa916bedf3423f81"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/037965c00a427cba5c05447efadc67c51a492e85"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/0583f24ae678993e3f7939f51ad5bcae5ad9dc70"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/2ffab083782968a4d732738f4f1dff6bbd69d2b0"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/390337b8ba1658833fdef379e1739c9f9533a8db"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/96510a3758f4a075f43223afdee3b6ee1a7a7f02"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/cb409342a19f25656f62e679f8bac265fe1442c3"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/152674"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/152676"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://mail.python.org/archives/list/security-announce@python.org/thread/7YMZ6DDZVR26TJJBVO3RDNBAVGHNYAKR/"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-6879"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.6.2",
  "summary": "Quadratic Behavior in xml.etree.ElementPath Index Predicates"
}



Log in or create an account to share your comment.




Tags
Taxonomy of the tags.





Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.

Sightings

Author Source Type Date Other

Nomenclature

  • Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
  • Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
  • Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
  • Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.


Detection rules are retrieved from Rulezet.