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Zero-step sequence causes process hang and memory exhaustion

Moderate
juliangruber published GHSA-f886-m6hf-6m8v Mar 24, 2026

Package

npm brace-expansion (npm)

Affected versions

>=5.0.0 <5.0.5, >=3.0.0 < 3.0.2, >=2.0.0 <2.0.3, >=0.0.0 <1.1.13

Patched versions

5.0.5, 3.0.2, 2.0.3, 1.1.13

Description

Impact

A brace pattern with a zero step value (e.g., {1..2..0}) causes the sequence generation loop to run indefinitely, making the process hang for seconds and allocate heaps of memory.

The loop in question:

for (let i = x; test(i, y); i += incr) {

test() is one of

function lte(i: number, y: number) {
return i <= y
}
function gte(i: number, y: number) {
return i >= y
}

The increment is computed as Math.abs(0) = 0, so the loop variable never advances. On a test machine, the process hangs for about 3.5 seconds and allocates roughly 1.9 GB of memory before throwing a RangeError. Setting max to any value has no effect because the limit is only checked at the output combination step, not during sequence generation.

This affects any application that passes untrusted strings to expand(), or by error sets a step value of 0. That includes tools built on minimatch/glob that resolve patterns from CLI arguments or config files. The input needed is just 10 bytes.

Patches

Upgrade to versions

  • 5.0.5+

A step increment of 0 is now sanitized to 1, which matches bash behavior.

Workarounds

Sanitize strings passed to expand() to ensure a step value of 0 is not used.

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVE ID

CVE-2026-33750

Weaknesses

No CWEs

Credits