[5.2.x] Fixed CVE-2026-1285 -- Mitigated potential DoS in django.utils.text.Truncator for HTML input.

nessita · jacobtylerwalls · commit 9f2ada875bbe · 2026-02-03T08:15:39.000-05:00
The `TruncateHTMLParser` used `deque.remove()` to remove tags from the stack when processing end tags. With crafted input containing many unmatched end tags, this caused repeated full scans of the tag stack, leading to quadratic time complexity. The fix uses LIFO semantics, only removing a tag from the stack when it matches the most recently opened tag. This avoids linear scans for unmatched end tags and reduces complexity to linear time. Refs #30686 and 6ee37ad. Thanks Seokchan Yoon for the report, and Jake Howard and Jacob Walls for reviews. Backport of a33540b from main.
diff --git a/django/utils/text.py b/django/utils/text.py
@@ -126,10 +126,11 @@ def handle_starttag(self, tag, attrs):
     def handle_endtag(self, tag):
         if tag not in self.void_elements:
             self.output += f"</{tag}>"
-            try:
-                self.tags.remove(tag)
-            except ValueError:
-                pass
+            # Remove from the stack only if the tag matches the most recently
+            # opened tag (LIFO). This avoids O(n) linear scans for unmatched
+            # end tags if `deque.remove()` would be called.
+            if self.tags and self.tags[0] == tag:
+                self.tags.popleft()
 
     def handle_data(self, data):
         data, output = self.process(data)
diff --git a/docs/releases/4.2.28.txt b/docs/releases/4.2.28.txt
@@ -41,3 +41,15 @@ As a reminder, all untrusted user input should be validated before use.
 
 This issue has severity "high" according to the :ref:`Django security policy
 <security-disclosure>`.
+
+CVE-2026-1285: Potential denial-of-service vulnerability in ``django.utils.text.Truncator`` HTML methods
+========================================================================================================
+
+``django.utils.text.Truncator.chars()`` and ``Truncator.words()`` methods (with
+``html=True``) and the :tfilter:`truncatechars_html` and
+:tfilter:`truncatewords_html` template filters were subject to a potential
+denial-of-service attack via certain inputs with a large number of unmatched
+HTML end tags, which could cause quadratic time complexity during HTML parsing.
+
+This issue has severity "moderate" according to the :ref:`Django security
+policy <security-disclosure>`.
diff --git a/docs/releases/5.2.11.txt b/docs/releases/5.2.11.txt
@@ -41,3 +41,15 @@ As a reminder, all untrusted user input should be validated before use.
 
 This issue has severity "high" according to the :ref:`Django security policy
 <security-disclosure>`.
+
+CVE-2026-1285: Potential denial-of-service vulnerability in ``django.utils.text.Truncator`` HTML methods
+========================================================================================================
+
+``django.utils.text.Truncator.chars()`` and ``Truncator.words()`` methods (with
+``html=True``) and the :tfilter:`truncatechars_html` and
+:tfilter:`truncatewords_html` template filters were subject to a potential
+denial-of-service attack via certain inputs with a large number of unmatched
+HTML end tags, which could cause quadratic time complexity during HTML parsing.
+
+This issue has severity "moderate" according to the :ref:`Django security
+policy <security-disclosure>`.
diff --git a/tests/utils_tests/test_text.py b/tests/utils_tests/test_text.py
@@ -202,6 +202,16 @@ def test_truncate_chars_html_with_html_entities(self):
         truncator = text.Truncator("<p>I &lt;3 python, what about you?</p>")
         self.assertEqual("<p>I &lt;3 python, wh…</p>", truncator.chars(16, html=True))
 
+    def test_truncate_chars_html_with_misnested_tags(self):
+        # LIFO removal keeps all tags when a middle tag is closed out of order.
+        # With <a><b><c></b>, the </b> doesn't match <c>, so all tags remain
+        # in the stack and are properly closed at truncation.
+        truncator = text.Truncator("<a><b><c></b>XXXX")
+        self.assertEqual(
+            truncator.chars(2, html=True, truncate=""),
+            "<a><b><c></b>XX</c></b></a>",
+        )
+
     def test_truncate_words(self):
         truncator = text.Truncator("The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.")
         self.assertEqual(
