CVE-2026-116273
Low risk· EPSS 7%Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk7th percentile - higher than 7% of all known CVEs
Summary
MIME::Parser versions before 5.521 for Perl set no limit on the number of message parts by default, allowing memory exhaustion. The max_parts option defaulted to -1 (no limit); version 5.521 sets max_parts to 1000 and max_depth to 64 by default.
Risk Assessment
A remote sender can send a message with a huge number of parts, exhausting memory in mail applications and causing denial of service.
Recommendation
Upgrade MIME::Parser to version 5.521 or later.
Other vulnerabilities in MIME::Parser
See all- CVE-2026-116267Low risk· EPSS 7%
MIME::Parser versions before 5.521 for Perl allow memory exhaustion via indented error messages from a truncated, deeply nested message. Each stored parser diagnostic is indented by three spaces per nesting level, and when a message nested N levels deep ends without its closing boundaries, every level logs an error at its own depth, so the stored diagnostics grow with the square of N. The defaults place no limit on nesting depth.
- CVE-2026-42504High
Decoding a maliciously-crafted MIME header containing many invalid encoded-words can consume excessive CPU resources.
Original NVD description (English source)
MIME::Parser versions before 5.521 for Perl set no limit on the number of message parts by default, allowing memory exhaustion. The max_parts option defaulted to -1, which disables the limit, so a parser created with default settings builds an entity for every part however many a message has. Version 5.521 sets max_parts to 1000 and max_depth to 64 by default. Setting either to -1 still removes the limit.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS