CVE-2026-116285 Affecting libhttp-body-perl package, versions *

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream libhttp-body-perl package and not the libhttp-body-perl package as distributed by Debian. See How to fix? for Debian:12 relevant fixed versions and status.

HTTP::Body versions before 1.23_01 for Perl allow CPU exhaustion via quadratic regex backtracking when parsing chunked request bodies.

In chunked mode, used when no content length is given, add() matches each chunk-size line with /^([\da-fA-F]+).*\x0D\x0A/. On a line of hex digits whose first LF has no CR before it, the digits and .* backtrack against each other, so a single add() takes time quadratic in the line's length. Nothing limits how long the line can be.

A remote attacker can exhaust CPU in applications that pass chunked request bodies to HTTP::Body.

• https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-116285
• https://github.com/libwww-perl/HTTP-Body/commit/954a5343d2a095b59d357f28759c5388d1169574.patch
• https://metacpan.org/release/GETTY/HTTP-Body-1.24/changes