Symfony's YAML Parser has a ReDoS via Catastrophic Backtracking in Parser::cleanup() Regex
Date: 2026-05
Affected: composer/symfony/yaml, composer/symfony/yaml, composer/symfony/yaml
Attack vector: dos
Category: vulnerability-disclosure
Severity: Low
CVE: CVE-2026-45305
CWE: CWE-1333

### Description `Symfony\Component\Yaml\Parser::cleanup()` strips the optional `%YAML` directive header, leading comments, and document start/end markers before parsing. The original regexes contained overlapping quantifiers, most notably `'#^%YAML[: ][\d.]+.*\n#u'`, whose `[\d.]+` and `.*` overlap on the dot, that exhibit catastrophic backtracking on crafted input. A single oversized `%YAML` directive header (or comment / document-marker line) makes the parser hang for an arbitrarily long time, denying service. ### Resolution The four regexes in `Parser::cleanup()` (YAML directive header, leading comments, document-start marker, document-end marker) have been rewritten with possessive quantifiers and unambiguous character classes so backtracking cannot occur. The patch for this issue is available [here](https://github.com/symfony/symfony/commit/9749cd43c5e09b3735093623670b21b9d8a056cb) for branch 5.4. ### Credits Symfony would like to thank Pietro Tirenna (Shielder) for reporting the issue and Nicolas Grekas for fixing it.


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