CVE-2026-43896

A flaw was found in jq, a command line JSON processor. The jv_object_merge_recursive function, reachable via the * operator when both operands are objects, does not have a depth limit when processing nested objects. This missing depth limit allows an attacker who can supply a sufficiently nested input structure to exhaust the stack memory, causing an application crash and resulting in a denial of service.

To exploit this issue, an attacker needs to supply a crafted JSON input to be processed by jq with the jv_object_merge_recursive function, reachable via the * operator when both operands are objects. This allows the attacker to cause an application crash with no other security impact. Due to these reasons, this vulnerability has been rated with a moderate severity.

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.

Do not process untrusted input with the jq command line JSON processor.