CVE-2026-55099
icalendar is an RFC 5545 compatible parser and generator of iCalendar files for Python. From 7.1.0 until 7.1.3, the Component equality method in src/icalendar/cal/component.py compares nested subcomponents with two membership loops, and each membership test invokes the same method on child components, causing O(2^n) work relative to nesting depth. Component.from_ical accepts arbitrarily nested BEGIN:VEVENT blocks without a depth limit, so an attacker can submit a sub-kilobyte .ics file containing equal nested subtrees and trigger the cost when an application performs equality, inequality, membership, deduplication, test-assertion, round-trip, or normalization comparisons. Parsing alone does not trigger the issue, and comparisons that differ early short-circuit, but a few hundred bytes can pin a CPU core for minutes or indefinitely, causing denial of service in calendar sync or import endpoints, invite processing, and other comparison paths. This issue is fixed in version 7.1.3.
What this means for your business
- An attacker can use it remotely, over a network, without a login, and without anyone at your company clicking anything.
- FIRST's prediction model gives it a 0.4% chance of attack attempts being seen in the next 30 days, ranking above 31% of all known flaws.
What to do
- 1Ask your IT team or provider whether any of your systems use the affected product.
- 2If you do, follow the vendor's guidance. No patch reference has been published yet.
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Scoring
- CVSS
- 7.5 (v3.1)
- Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H- Weakness
- CWE-400
- Assigned by
- security-advisories@github.com
Dates
- Published
- 2026-08-25
- Last modified
- 2026-09-09
- Sources
- NVD
References
- https://github.com/collective/icalendar/commit/b6b2608ae3af6de40695b4e40f71847485aa0b49
- https://github.com/collective/icalendar/commit/cad40cd112c93fd142ec12cc5b37445a849b8a79
- https://github.com/collective/icalendar/releases/tag/v7.1.3
- https://github.com/collective/icalendar/security/advisories/GHSA-cv84-9p8j-fj68
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/06/23/8
- https://github.com/collective/icalendar/security/advisories/GHSA-cv84-9p8j-fj68