Jackson-core 2.17+ DoS via regex backtracking in NumberInput
CVE-2026-89407 Published on September 22, 2026

jackson-core: quadratic backtracking in NumberInput.PATTERN_FLOAT via looksLikeValidNumber() enables ReDoS
NumberInput.looksLikeValidNumber() in FasterXML jackson-core pre-validates "stringified numbers" with two regular expressions: PATTERN_FLOAT ([+-]?[0-9]*[\.]?[0-9]+([eE][+-]?[0-9]+)?), present since 2.17.0, and PATTERN_FLOAT_TRAILING_DOT, added in 2.17.2. PATTERN_FLOAT places adjacent quantifiers over the same character class -- an optional [0-9]* run, an optional dot, then a required [0-9]+ run -- so input that ultimately fails to match forces Java's backtracking engine to retry every possible split point of the digit run.  Matching cost therefore grows with the square of the input length.  An attacker who can supply JSON that an application deserializes into a numeric target type reaches this method through jackson-databind's default String-to-number coercion (StdDeserializer and NumberDeserializers for BigDecimal, BigInteger, Double and Float).  Because StreamReadConstraints.maxStringLength defaults to 20,000,000 characters, no constraint bounds the input before it reaches the regex.  Testing by the reporter confirmed O(n^2) growth across five consecutive input-size doublings, with a single 160,000-character string consuming roughly 74 seconds in one call; a small number of concurrent requests of ordinary body size can therefore exhaust a server's request-handling thread pool.  The affected method does not exist before 2.17.0, so 2.16.x and earlier releases are not affected.  The fix replaces both regular expressions with a hand-rolled single-pass scan.

Vendor Advisory NVD

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2026-89407 can be exploited with network access, and does not require authorization privileges or user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. An automatable proof of concept (POC) exploit exists. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have no impact on confidentiality and integrity, and a high impact on availability.

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

Weakness Types

What is a ReDoS Vulnerability?

The product uses a regular expression with an inefficient, possibly exponential worst-case computational complexity that consumes excessive CPU cycles. Some regular expression engines have a feature called "backtracking". If the token cannot match, the engine "backtracks" to a position that may result in a different token that can match. Backtracking becomes a weakness if all of these conditions are met:

CVE-2026-89407 has been classified to as a ReDoS vulnerability or weakness.

What is a Resource Exhaustion Vulnerability?

The software does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource, thereby enabling an actor to influence the amount of resources consumed, eventually leading to the exhaustion of available resources.

CVE-2026-89407 has been classified to as a Resource Exhaustion vulnerability or weakness.


Affected Versions

FasterXML jackson-core: FasterXML jackson-core: