CVE-2026-55620

eml_parser serves as a python module for parsing eml files and returning various information found in the e-mail as well as computed information. Prior to 3.0.2, eml_parser.routing.noparenthesis in eml_parser/routing.py removes parenthesized CFWS comments from Received: headers with a regex-based fix-point loop whose running time is quadratic in the nesting depth. A single Received: header with 5,000 nested parentheses causes approximately 1.3 seconds of CPU saturation per parsed message, and doubling the nesting depth approximately quadruples the running time. An attacker can submit relatively small EML files that consume multiple seconds of processing time, causing worker latency, queue backpressure, and possible service-level outages in synchronous gateways, sandboxes, and real-time triage pipelines. This issue is fixed in version 3.0.2.

eml_parser serves as a python module for parsing eml files and returning various information found in the e-mail as well as computed information. Prior to 3.0.2, eml_parser.routing.noparenthesis in eml_parser/routing.py removes parenthesized CFWS comments from Received: headers with a regex-based fix-point loop whose running time is quadratic in the nesting depth. A single Received: header with 5,000 nested parentheses causes approximately 1.3 seconds of CPU saturation per parsed message, and doubling the nesting depth approximately quadruples the running time. An attacker can submit relatively small EML files that consume multiple seconds of processing time, causing worker latency, queue backpressure, and possible service-level outages in synchronous gateways, sandboxes, and real-time triage pipelines. This issue is fixed in version 3.0.2.

Summary

eml_parser strips parenthesised CFWS comments from Received: headers using a regex-based fix-point loop. The loop has quadratic time complexity in the number of nested parens. A single Received: header containing 5,000 nested parens causes ~1.3 seconds of CPU saturation per parsed message; runtime quadruples per doubling of nesting depth.

Impact

This represents a CPU exhaustion DoS in any pipeline that processes attacker-supplied EML files. An attacker can create relatively small EML files that will take multiple seconds to parse.

This is particularly problematic for synchronous email-processing pipelines (gateways, sandboxes, real-time triage) where worker latency directly translates to queue backpressure and possible service-level outages.

Patches

Since version 3.0.2, eml_parser uses a linear-time algorithm to remove the comments from Received: headers.

eml_parser serves as a python module for parsing eml files and returning various information found in the e-mail as well as computed information. Prior to 3.0.2, eml_parser.routing.noparenthesis in eml_parser/routing.py removes parenthesized CFWS comments from Received: headers with a regex-based fix-point loop whose running time is quadratic in the nesting depth. A single Received: header with 5,000 nested parentheses causes approximately 1.3 seconds of CPU saturation per parsed message, and doubling the nesting depth approximately quadruples the running time. An attacker can submit relatively small EML files that consume multiple seconds of processing time, causing worker latency, queue backpressure, and possible service-level outages in synchronous gateways, sandboxes, and real-time triage pipelines. This issue is fixed in version 3.0.2.

eml_parser serves as a python module for parsing eml files and returning various information found in the e-mail as well as computed information. Prior to 3.0.2, eml_parser.routing.noparenthesis in eml_parser/routing.py removes parenthesized CFWS comments from Received: headers with a regex-based fix-point loop whose running time is quadratic in the nesting depth. A single Received: header with 5,000 nested parentheses causes approximately 1.3 seconds of CPU saturation per parsed message, and doubling the nesting depth approximately quadruples the running time. An attacker can submit relatively small EML files that consume multiple seconds of processing time, causing worker latency, queue backpressure, and possible service-level outages in synchronous gateways, sandboxes, and real-time triage pipelines. This issue is fixed in version 3.0.2.

Summary

eml_parser strips parenthesised CFWS comments from Received: headers using a regex-based fix-point loop. The loop has quadratic time complexity in the number of nested parens. A single Received: header containing 5,000 nested parens causes ~1.3 seconds of CPU saturation per parsed message; runtime quadruples per doubling of nesting depth.

Impact

This represents a CPU exhaustion DoS in any pipeline that processes attacker-supplied EML files. An attacker can create relatively small EML files that will take multiple seconds to parse.

This is particularly problematic for synchronous email-processing pipelines (gateways, sandboxes, real-time triage) where worker latency directly translates to queue backpressure and possible service-level outages.

Patches

Since version 3.0.2, eml_parser uses a linear-time algorithm to remove the comments from Received: headers.

Summary

eml_parser strips parenthesised CFWS comments from Received: headers using a regex-based fix-point loop. The loop has quadratic time complexity in the number of nested parens. A single Received: header containing 5,000 nested parens causes ~1.3 seconds of CPU saturation per parsed message; runtime quadruples per doubling of nesting depth.

Impact

This represents a CPU exhaustion DoS in any pipeline that processes attacker-supplied EML files. An attacker can create relatively small EML files that will take multiple seconds to parse.

This is particularly problematic for synchronous email-processing pipelines (gateways, sandboxes, real-time triage) where worker latency directly translates to queue backpressure and possible service-level outages.

Patches

Since version 3.0.2, eml_parser uses a linear-time algorithm to remove the comments from Received: headers.