libexpat through 2.9.0 contains a signed integer overflow vulnerability in storeAtts() in lib/xmlparse.c that allows attackers to trigger out-of-bounds writes via oversized attribute counts. Attackers can supply a multi-gigabyte document with a start tag carrying over 2^30 attributes to overflow attIndex and nPrefixes, crashing applications or corrupting heap memory.
libexpat through 2.9.0 contains a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in externalEntityInitProcessor2() in lib/xmlparse.c that mishandles the XML_TOK_NONE token from empty input. Attackers who control stream chunking can force an empty non-final first parse on an external entity subparser, causing a later parse to crash the application.
libexpat through 2.9.0 contains a denial of service vulnerability because billion laughs protection in accountingDiffTolerated() in xmlparse.c detects entity amplification too late. Attackers can supply a moderately sized XML document with a large DTD and nested entity expansions to consume tens of seconds of CPU per parse.
libexpat 2.7.2 through 2.9.0 contains a denial of service vulnerability because XML_ParserReset zeroes the direct byte count but never offsets tracked heap allocations. Attackers can submit a large XML document so later documents on the same reset parser fail with XML_ERROR_NO_MEMORY until it is recreated.
libexpat before 2.8.4 lacks handler call depth tracking with custom encoding callbacks. Thus, a use-after-free can occur. NOTE: this is similar to CVE-2026-50219, CVE-2026-56131 and CVE-2026-56412.
Expat through 2.8.3 contains a denial of service vulnerability caused by quadratic algorithmic complexity in the storeAtts() function in xmlparse.c, where processing N specified attributes with non-normalized values triggers an O(N^2) linear scan of elementType->defaultAtts to determine CDATA status. A remote unauthenticated attacker can supply a single well-formed XML document of a few megabytes to an application parsing untrusted XML to cause excessive CPU consumption, resulting in denial of service without requiring authentication, external entity resolution, or non-default parser options.
libexpat before 2.8.2 does not consider XML_TOK_DATA_CHARS in doCdataSection and thus lacks handler call depth tracking for various calls from within handlers in cases of a policy violation. Thus, a use-after-free can occur. NOTE: this issue exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2026-50219.