Docling XXE in USPTO Patent XML Parser (2.13.02.73.9)
CVE-2026-44020 Published on June 24, 2026

Docling: Unsafe XML Entity Expansion in USPTO Patent Backend
Docling simplifies document processing by parsing diverse formats and providing integrations with the generative AI ecosystem. From 2.13.0 until 2.74.0, the USPTO patent XML parser used the standard xml.sax.parseString() without protection against XML External Entity (XXE) attacks. An attacker could craft malicious USPTO patent XML files with external entity references that could read arbitrary files from the server filesystem, perform Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) attacks, or cause denial of service through entity expansion (Billion Laughs attack). The vulnerability affects three USPTO patent format parsers: ICE (v4.x), Grant v2.5, and Application v1.x. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.74.0.

NVD

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2026-44020 is exploitable with network access, and does not require authorization privileges or user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have a high impact on confidentiality, with no impact on integrity, and a high impact on availability.

Attack Vector:
NETWORK
Attack Complexity:
LOW
Privileges Required:
NONE
User Interaction:
NONE
Scope:
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact:
HIGH
Integrity Impact:
LOW
Availability Impact:
HIGH

Weakness Types

What is a XEE Vulnerability?

The software uses XML documents and allows their structure to be defined with a Document Type Definition (DTD), but it does not properly control the number of recursive definitions of entities. If the DTD contains a large number of nested or recursive entities, this can lead to explosive growth of data when parsed, causing a denial of service.

CVE-2026-44020 has been classified to as a XEE vulnerability or weakness.

What is a XXE Vulnerability?

The software processes an XML document that can contain XML entities with URIs that resolve to documents outside of the intended sphere of control, causing the product to embed incorrect documents into its output.

CVE-2026-44020 has been classified to as a XXE vulnerability or weakness.


Products Associated with CVE-2026-44020

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Red Hat Openshift Ai
 

Affected Versions

docling-project docling: Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI):