Vulnerability Details CVE-2026-67216
cJSON through 1.7.19 contains an inefficient algorithmic complexity flaw in cJSON_Compare(). When comparing objects, the function recurses into each shared subtree twice, once in each direction, with no depth guard, making the running time exponential in nesting depth. A small, deeply nested document of a few hundred bytes (depth around 40) compared for equality consumes hours of CPU, and the cost roughly doubles with each additional level of nesting. An application that calls cJSON_Compare() on attacker-influenced JSON that is structurally equal to a reference document is exposed to a denial-of-service condition.
Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score
EPSS Score 0.003
EPSS Ranking 24.3%
CVSS Severity
CVSS v3 Score 5.9
References
Products affected by CVE-2026-67216
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:0.0.0
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.0.0
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.0.1
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.0.2
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.1.0
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.2.0
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.2.1
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.3.0
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.3.1
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.3.2
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.4.0
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.4.1
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.4.2
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.4.3
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.4.4
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.4.5
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.4.6
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.4.7
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.5.0
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.5.1
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.5.2
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.5.3
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.5.4
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.5.5
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.5.6
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.5.7
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.5.8
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.5.9
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.6.0
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.0
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.1
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.10
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.11
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.12
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.13
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.14
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.15
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.16
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.17
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.18
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.2
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.3
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.4
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.5
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.6
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.7
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.8
-
cpe:2.3:a:davegamble:cjson:1.7.9