---
id: CVE-2026-72912
title: >-
  CyberChef is a web app for encryption, encoding, compression, and data
  analysis
summary: >-
  CyberChef is a web app for encryption, encoding, compression, and data
  analysis. Prior to 11.3.0, CyberChef's pretty-recipe parser in
  src/core/Utils.mjs can exhaust client-side CPU when a malformed #recipe= URL
  fragment containing a larg…
severity: medium
cvss: 4.3
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L'
cwe:
  - CWE-400
  - CWE-1333
vendor: gchq
product: CyberChef
affected:
  - CyberChef < 11.3.0
published: '2026-08-10'
updated: '2026-09-09'
sourceUpdated: '2026-09-09T20:55:04.493'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-72912'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/commit/f77ddf489050b339faa978bb28da954bafd289ae
    label: security-advisories@github.com
  - url: 'https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/pull/2687'
    label: security-advisories@github.com
  - url: 'https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/releases/tag/v11.3.0'
    label: security-advisories@github.com
  - url: 'https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/security/advisories/GHSA-w74r-jxjh-gwr6'
    label: security-advisories@github.com
tags:
  - nvd
  - cve.org
ssvc:
  exploitation: none
  automatable: 'no'
  technicalImpact: partial
  timestamp: '2026-08-12T22:08:01.746436Z'
ingestedAt: '2026-09-12T20:05:26.781Z'
epss: 0.00315
epssPercentile: 0.21808
---

## Overview

CyberChef is a web app for encryption, encoding, compression, and data analysis. Prior to 11.3.0, CyberChef's pretty-recipe parser in src/core/Utils.mjs can exhaust client-side CPU when a malformed #recipe= URL fragment containing a large number of unmatched quote characters reaches Utils.parseRecipeConfig(). The function synchronously applies a complex global regular expression that may perform heavy backtracking before rejecting the input, causing the victim's browser tab to freeze during startup for seconds or longer. No code execution, data exfiltration, or privilege escalation occurs. This issue is fixed in version 11.3.0.

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.