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CVE-2021-41115

Regular expression denial-of-service in Zulip

4.3 Medium

Zulip is an open source team chat server. In affected versions Zulip allows organization administrators on a server to configure "linkifiers" that automatically create links from messages that users send, detected via arbitrary regular expressions. Malicious organization administrators could subject the server to a denial-of-service via regular expression complexity attacks; most simply, by configuring a quadratic-time regular expression in a linkifier, and sending messages that exploited it. A regular expression attempted to parse the user-provided regexes to verify that they were safe from ReDoS -- this was both insufficient, as well as itself subject to ReDoS if the organization administrator entered a sufficiently complex invalid regex. Affected users should upgrade to the just-released Zulip 4.7, or main.

Attack profile

How easy it is to exploit

Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges needed
Low
User interaction
None

What an attacker can affect

Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low

Exploit likelihood

1.74%Up 0.9 points since Oct 8, 2021
90%50%10%1%

What each source reports

CVE List Score used 4.3

Regular expression denial-of-service in Zulip

Zulip is an open source team chat server. In affected versions Zulip allows organization administrators on a server to configure "linkifiers" that automatically create links from messages that users send, detected via arbitrary regular expressions. Malicious organization administrators could subject the server to a denial-of-service via regular expression complexity attacks; most simply, by configuring a quadratic-time regular expression in a linkifier, and sending messages that exploited it. A regular expression attempted to parse the user-provided regexes to verify that they were safe from ReDoS -- this was both insufficient, as well as itself subject to ReDoS if the organization administrator entered a sufficiently complex invalid regex. Affected users should upgrade to the just-released Zulip 4.7, or main.

Record
CVE-2021-41115
CVSS 3.1
4.3 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Weakness
CWE-400, CWE-1333
Updated
2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2021-28248 4.3

Zulip is an open source team chat server. In affected versions Zulip allows organization administrators on a server to configure "linkifiers" that automatically create links from messages that users send, detected via arbitrary regular expressions. Malicious organization administrators could subject the server to a denial-of-service via regular expression complexity attacks; most simply, by configuring a quadratic-time regular expression in a linkifier, and sending messages that exploited it. A regular expression attempted to parse the user-provided regexes to verify that they were safe from ReDoS -- this was both insufficient, as well as itself subject to ReDoS if the organization administrator entered a sufficiently complex invalid regex. Affected users should upgrade to the just-released Zulip 4.7, or main.

Record
EUVD-2021-28248
CVSS 3.1
4.3 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Updated
2026-11-03
NVD 4.3

Zulip is an open source team chat server. In affected versions Zulip allows organization administrators on a server to configure "linkifiers" that automatically create links from messages that users send, detected via arbitrary regular expressions. Malicious organization administrators could subject the server to a denial-of-service via regular expression complexity attacks; most simply, by configuring a quadratic-time regular expression in a linkifier, and sending messages that exploited it. A regular expression attempted to parse the user-provided regexes to verify that they were safe from ReDoS -- this was both insufficient, as well as itself subject to ReDoS if the organization administrator entered a sufficiently complex invalid regex. Affected users should upgrade to the just-released Zulip 4.7, or main.

Record
CVE-2021-41115
CVSS 3.1
4.3 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CVSS 3.1
6.5 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS 2.0
4.0 MediumAV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:P
Weakness
CWE-400, CWE-1333
Updated
2026-11-02
OSV 6.5

Zulip is an open source team chat server. In affected versions Zulip allows organization administrators on a server to configure "linkifiers" that automatically create links from messages that users send, detected via arbitrary regular expressions. Malicious organization administrators could subject the server to a denial-of-service via regular expression complexity attacks; most simply, by configuring a quadratic-time regular expression in a linkifier, and sending messages that exploited it. A regular expression attempted to parse the user-provided regexes to verify that they were safe from ReDoS -- this was both insufficient, as well as itself subject to ReDoS if the organization administrator entered a sufficiently complex invalid regex. Affected users should upgrade to the just-released Zulip 4.7, or main.

Record
CVE-2021-41115
CVSS 3.1
6.5 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Updated
2026-11-02

Affected products

History

History
RecordedChangedSources
aliasesEUVD
first indexedCVE List, NVD, OSV

Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.

In short

CVE-2021-41115 is a medium vulnerability (CVSS 4.3) in Zulip, published October 7, 2021. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 1.74%, the 77th percentile. No source names a fixed version.

References

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