GHSA-763m-79hh-57f2: Pip/pypdf vulnerability

Published Sep 1, 2026
·
Updated

Impact

An attacker who uses this vulnerability can craft a PDF which leads to long runtimes and large memory consumption. This requires extracting the text of a page with lots of XForm objects, where some of them might be re-used.

Patches

This has been fixed in pypdf==6.16.1.

Workarounds

If you cannot upgrade yet, consider applying the changes from PR #3966.

Affected Software

1 affected componentFixes available
pip/pypdf<6.16.1
6.16.1

Remediation

Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.

  1. Upgrade

    Upgrade pip/pypdf to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in 6.16.1
  2. Upgrade

    Upgrade py-pdf/pypdf to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in 6.16.1
  3. Compensating control

    If you cannot upgrade yet, apply the changes from PR [#3966] referenced in the material.

Event History

Sep 1, 2026
Advisory Published
via GitHub·09:27 PM
Data Sourced
via GitHub·09:27 PM
DescriptionWeaknessAffected Software

Frequently Asked Questions

1

Which deployments are exposed to this issue?

Deployments that use pypdf to extract text from PDF pages are exposed when processing PDFs containing many XForm objects, particularly where XForm objects are reused.

2

What must an attacker do to trigger the issue?

An attacker must provide a crafted PDF and cause the application to extract text from an affected page. Successful exploitation results in long runtimes and high memory consumption.

3

What should I do if I cannot upgrade immediately?

Apply the changes from PR #3966 as a workaround. The issue is fixed in pypdf 6.16.1.

Contact

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