CVE-2026-0992

A flaw was found in the libxml2 library. This uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability occurs when processing XML catalogs that contain repeated <nextCatalog> elements pointing to the same downstream catalog. A remote attacker can exploit this by supplying crafted catalogs, causing the parser to redundantly traverse catalog chains. This leads to excessive CPU consumption and degrades application availability, resulting in a denial-of-service condition.

This vulnerability is rated Low for Red Hat. It affects applications that use the libxml2 library to process XML catalogs. An attacker must locally supply specially crafted XML catalogs containing repeated <nextCatalog> elements, which can lead to excessive CPU consumption and a denial-of-service condition due to redundant catalog chain traversal.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.