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OpenAdvisories
High · 7.5 CVE-2026-116270 EUVD-2026-112303GHSA-jq2x-c3x3-gv8c

MIME::Words versions before 5.521 for Perl allow memory exhaustion via repeated "=?" sequences in decode_mimewords

Published Oct 28, 2026 · Updated Nov 5, 2026 · Assigned by CPANSec

Description

MIME::Words versions before 5.521 for Perl allow memory exhaustion via repeated "=?" sequences in decode_mimewords.

For each "=?" that does not start a complete encoded word, decode_mimewords appends an error message containing the whole input string to $@. A boundary of 8,000 "=?" pairs (16,000 bytes) adds 8,000 copies of itself to $@, about 128 MB.

From version 5.518, MIME::Parser decodes every multipart boundary this way, so a remote sender can exhaust the memory of the parsing process with one Content-Type header.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
— MIME-tools < 5.521 5.521

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 libmime-tools-perl 5.522-1 —
Debian 13 libmime-tools-perl No fix yet —
Debian 12 libmime-tools-perl No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 26.10 libmime-tools-perl No fix yet —
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS libmime-tools-perl No fix yet —
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS libmime-tools-perl No fix yet —
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS libmime-tools-perl No fix yet —
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS libmime-tools-perl No fix yet —
Show 3 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS libmime-tools-perl No fix yet —
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS libmime-tools-perl No fix yet —
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS libmime-tools-perl No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Tumbleweed perl-MIME-tools 5.522.0-1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:12347-1
openSUSE Leap 16.0 perl-MIME-tools 5.522.0-bp160.1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:22226-1

Amazon Linux

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Amazon Linux 2023 perl-MIME-tools 5.522-1.amzn2023.0.1 ALAS2023-2026-3425
Amazon Linux 2 perl-MIME-tools 5.505-1.amzn2.0.1 ALAS2-2026-4095

Advisories 4

References