CVE-2026-73413

Shescape: Quadratic-time denial of service in flag-protection

HIGH
8.7
CVSS Score
Published: August 12, 2026 at 07:40 PM UTC
Updated: October 24, 2026 at 03:10 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorProject Shescape

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Severity
HIGH8.7
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.6%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

Shescape is a simple shell escape library for JavaScript. From 2.1.11 until 2.1.14 and 3.0.1, the flag-protection loop in compose in src/internal/compose.js repeatedly joins and slices flag fragments when flagProtection is enabled, which is the default, making processing quadratic in input size across the escape, escapeAll, quote, and quoteAll APIs. An attacker who can supply a large untrusted input containing many flag fragments can consume CPU and cause denial of service. This issue is fixed in versions 2.1.14 and 3.0.1.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

>= 2.1.11, < 2.1.14>= 3.0.0, < 3.0.1
Affected range stops below 2.1.14, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 3.0.1, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet, and no fixed version or vendor advisory is recorded against it.

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitAutomatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

8.7HIGHGitHub_M
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusDEFERRED
CWE
CWE-400CWE-407

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