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OpenAdvisories
High · 7.3 CVE-2026-112921 EUVD-2026-107580GHSA-wh9j-9gh8-wm87

Robots::Validate versions from 0.4.3 before 0.4.10 for Perl report clients as imposter robots when User-Agent matcher state carries over from a previous request

Published Oct 21, 2026 · Updated Oct 30, 2026 · Assigned by CPANSec

Description

Robots::Validate versions from 0.4.3 before 0.4.10 for Perl report clients as imposter robots when User-Agent matcher state carries over from a previous request.

Each Robots::Validate object holds one pure-Perl Aho-Corasick search machine and feeds every User-Agent into it without resetting its state. A User-Agent that ends part-way through a robot name leaves the machine mid-match, so the next User-Agent checked by the same object can complete that name. That client's address is then checked against the robot's DNS rule, which it fails.

A remote client can use this to make a site that blocks bad robots block other visitors where the prefix User-Agent string is a suffix of a robot being validated.

Note that deployments with Algorithm::AhoCorasick::XS are also affected, since it was unused due to a different bug.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
— Robots-Validate 0.4.3 – < 0.4.10 0.4.10

References