fkie_cve-2026-114143

2026-10-22T21:36:51.578009+00:00

toml-node is a TOML parser for Node.js and the browser. Prior to 5.0.1, toml.parse() repeatedly slices and rejoins every path prefix in lib/compiler.js while processing long dotted keys, table headers, array-of-tables headers, and inline-table keys in assign(), deepRef(), and setNestedKey(). The resulting quadratic work can block the Node.js event loop for several seconds, and sufficiently long paths can terminate the process through memory exhaustion. The maxDepth option does not limit key-segment count and therefore does not mitigate this path. This issue is fixed in version 5.0.1.

GHSA-9j65-hcg3-gc64 — toml-node: Quadratic-complexity DoS via long dotted keys or table paths in toml.parse()

2026-10-22T21:36:51.578100+00:00

Affected: npm: toml

## Summary

`toml.parse()` is vulnerable to a quadratic-complexity (O(n²)) denial-of-service via a single long dotted key, table header, or inline-table key. A ~100KB crafted document causes a multi-second synchronous hang; a ~200KB document crashes the Node.js process outright with an uncatchable out-of-memory error. This is a separate, unpatched code path from the previously fixed stack-overflow DoS (`GHSA-82x6-q7mm-w9cf`) — it requires no array/inline-table nesting at all, and is confirmed unaffected by the `maxDepth` option that fixed that earlier issue.

## Affected component / version

- Package: `toml` (npm), repository `BinaryMuse/toml-node` - Functions: `assign()`, `deepRef()`, `setNestedKey()` in `lib/compiler.js` - Confirmed present in the audited checkout at commit `1b2ac40` (2026-07-16), one commit past the `v5.0.0` tag (a changelog-only change) — i.e. present in `v5.0.0`, the latest release. Not exhaustively verified against every prior release, but the affected functions are unrelated to `v5.0.0`'s BigInt/Temporal changes (per `CHANGELOG.md`), so the defect likely predates that release as well.

## Details

`toml.parse(input, options)` (`index.js:5-9`) forwards the caller-supplied string to `parser.parse()` and then `compiler.compile()` with no length or structural validation. Inside `lib/compiler.js`, three separate functions each walk a dotted key's segments in a `for` loop and, on **every** iteration, recompute the full path-prefix string from scrat…

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fkie_cve-2026-114143

GHSA-9j65-hcg3-gc64 — toml-node: Quadratic-complexity DoS via long dotted keys or table paths in toml.parse()