Description
Jawn is an open source JSON parser. Prior to 1.7.0, Jawn's AsyncParser can perform quadratic work when a single JSON token is delivered across many small chunks because each absorb call rescans the incomplete token from the start. A remote attacker who controls untrusted JSON input and its chunk sizes can exhaust CPU resources and cause denial of service in applications using AsyncParser. This issue is fixed in version 1.7.0.
Published: 2026-09-23
Score: 7.5 High
EPSS: n/a
KEV: No
Impact: Denial of Service via CPU exhaustion
Action: Immediate Patch
AI Analysis

Impact

Jawn is an open‑source JSON parser. Before version 1.7.0 its AsyncParser performs a quadratic amount of work when a single JSON token is sent in many tiny chunks; each absorb call re‑scans from the beginning. An attacker controlling the JSON payload and its fragmentation can trigger repeated rescans, which consumes large amounts of CPU and leads to a denial‑of‑service in applications that use AsyncParser.

Affected Systems

All versions of the Jawn Parser distributed under org.typelevel:jawn-parser_2.12, org.typelevel:jawn-parser_2.13, org.typelevel:jawn-parser_3 and the typelevel:jawn project that ship the parser before the release of 1.7.0 are affected. Upgrading to any version 1.7.0 or later removes the quadratic parsing behavior.

Risk and Exploitability

The CVSS score of 7.5 indicates a medium‑to‑high severity. The EPSS score is not available, and the vulnerability is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog. Because the flaw is triggered by remote on‑demand JSON input that can be individually controlled, the likely attack vector is remote network traffic or an API that accepts user data. An attacker can feed carefully crafted, fragment‑rich requests to exhaust server resources until legitimate traffic is denied.

Generated by OpenCVE AI on September 23, 2026 at 20:27 UTC.

Remediation

No vendor fix or workaround currently provided.

OpenCVE Recommended Actions

  • Upgrade the Jawn parser to version 1.7.0 or later.
  • If an upgrade cannot be performed immediately, restrict the size of incoming requests or limit the use of Chunked transfer encoding to prevent delivery of exceedingly small JSON fragments, thereby reducing the chance of triggering the quadratic parsing path.
  • Deploy application‑level rate limiting or CPU‑based throttling to detect and mitigate sudden spikes in parsing workload, and monitor system performance for signs of denial‑of‑service activity.

Generated by OpenCVE AI on September 23, 2026 at 20:27 UTC.

Tracking

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Advisories
Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-w4cm-gvhj-cgw6 Jawn: Quadratic parsing effort in AsyncParser
History

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 20:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'yes', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}


Wed, 23 Sep 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Jawn is an open source JSON parser. Prior to 1.7.0, Jawn's AsyncParser can perform quadratic work when a single JSON token is delivered across many small chunks because each absorb call rescans the incomplete token from the start. A remote attacker who controls untrusted JSON input and its chunk sizes can exhaust CPU resources and cause denial of service in applications using AsyncParser. This issue is fixed in version 1.7.0.
Title Jawn: Quadratic parsing effort in AsyncParser
Weaknesses CWE-400
CWE-407
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 7.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'}


Subscriptions

No data.

cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-09-23T19:41:40.864Z

Reserved: 2026-07-10T20:17:57.991Z

Link: CVE-2026-61814

cve-icon Vulnrichment

Updated: 2026-09-23T19:26:10.635Z

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-09-23T19:17:32.970

Modified: 2026-09-23T20:17:12.133

Link: CVE-2026-61814

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2026-09-23T20:30:09Z

Weaknesses
  • CWE-400

    Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

  • CWE-407

    Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity