CVE-2021-39194

mediumpriority · track · 27EPSS 0.017 · 77 %ileEUUS
grimoire priorityP3 · Track
Exploitable?
—
no known exploitation
Likely / severe?
1.66% (77th) EPSS
CVSS 4 · medium
Is it mine?
3 products
Check your exposure
Who says so?
4 sources
cnnvd · enisa_euvd · nvd · osv

EPSS · scored 2026-10-27

kaml is an open source implementation of the YAML format with support for kotlinx.serialization. In affected versions attackers that could provide arbitrary YAML input to an application that uses kaml could cause the application to endlessly loop while parsing the input. This could result in resource starvation and denial of service. This only affects applications that use polymorphic serialization with the default tagged polymorphism style. Applications using the property polymorphism style are not affected. YAML input for a polymorphic type that provided a tag but no value for the object would trigger the issue. Version 0.35.3 or later contain the fix for this issue.

01

cvss

Technical severity, 0–10. One row per scoring source.

6.5
010

base score 0–10 · higher = more severe · hover a vector to decode

v2.04mediumAV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:Pprimary · NVD / NIST USexploitability 8 · impact 2.9
v3.16.5mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:Hprimary · NVD / NIST USexploitability 2.8 · impact 3.6
v3.14.3mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:Lsecondary · ENISA EU
v3.14.3mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:Lsecondary · security-advisories@github.comexploitability 2.8 · impact 1.4
v3.14.3mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:Lsecondary · OSV
v3.16mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H/E:Usecondary · CVSS-BT (t0sche)
02

weaknesses

The CWE weakness classes this flaw belongs to.

03

affected products (3)

Products and version ranges known to be affected.

04

advisories (1)

Vendor and ecosystem advisories describing this.

  • GHSA-fmm9-3gv8-58f4Improper Handling of Missing Values in kaml2021-09-07ghsa · osvUS

    ### Impact Attackers that could provide arbitrary YAML input to an application that uses kaml could cause the application to endlessly loop while parsing the input. This could result in resource starvation and denial of service. This only affects applications that use polymorphic serialization with the default tagged polymorphism style. Applications using the property polymorphism style are not affected. YAML input for a polymorphic type that provided a tag but no value for the object would trigger the issue, for example: ```yaml !<x> ``` The following is a sample application that demonstrates this issue: ```kotlin import com.charleskorn.kaml.Yaml import kotlinx.serialization.SerialName import kotlinx.serialization.Serializable @Serializable private sealed class K { @Serializable @SerialName("x") data class X( val property: String? = null, ) : K() } const val s = """ !<x> """ fun main() { println("Started.") val result = Yaml.default.decodeFromString(K.serializer(), s) println("Finished, result is $result") } ``` On vulnerable versions of kaml, the `decodeFromString()` operation hangs and never returns. ### Patches Version 0.35.3 or later contain the fix for this issue.

05

also known as (3)

Other names and identifiers for this entity.

06

sources

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published 2021-09-07modified 2026-06-17
07

references (10)

External citations — patches, advisories, analysis.

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