GHSA-4f6g-68pf-7vhv
pypdf has possible long runtimes for malformed startxref
Packages
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
### Impact
An attacker who exploits this vulnerability can craft a PDF which leads to possibly long runtimes for invalid `startxref` entries. When rebuilding the cross-reference table, PDF files with lots of whitespace characters become problematic. Only the non-strict reading mode is affected.
### Patches
This has been fixed in [pypdf==6.6.0](https://github.com/py-pdf/pypdf/releases/tag/6.6.0).
### Workarounds
```python
from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
# Instead of
reader = PdfReader("file.pdf")
# use the strict mode:
reader = PdfReader("file.pdf", strict=True)
# Instead of
writer = PdfWriter(clone_from="file.pdf")
# use an explicit strict reader:
writer = PdfWriter(clone_from=PdfReader("file.pdf", strict=True))
```
### Resources
This issue has been fixed in #3594.
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.
- https://github.com/py-pdf/pypdf/security/advisories/GHSA-4f6g-68pf-7vhv
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-22691
- https://github.com/py-pdf/pypdf/pull/3594
- https://github.com/py-pdf/pypdf/commit/294165726b646bb7799be1cc787f593f2fdbcf45
- https://github.com/py-pdf/pypdf
- https://github.com/py-pdf/pypdf/releases/tag/6.6.0