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🛡️ CVE-2026-15996 — enterprise-server

🟠 CVSS 7.5 — High ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-674 NVD
7.5
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

A denial of service vulnerability was identified in GitHub Enterprise Server that allowed an unauthenticated attacker to cause excessive CPU consumption and exhaust the pool of request-handling worker processes by sending a crafted form-encoded HTTP POST request containing deeply nested parameters. Because request parameters were parsed before routing and authentication, any POST endpoint could be used to trigger the condition, which could render the instance unresponsive. This vulnerability affected all versions of GitHub Enterprise Server prior to 3.21 and was fixed in versions 3.20.3, 3.19.7, 3.18.10, and 3.17.16.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached over the network, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs no privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality none, integrity none, availability high.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

  • Attack vector: Network — reachable from anywhere that can route to the service.
  • Attack complexity: Low — the attack works reliably, with no preparation.
  • Privileges required: None — an unauthenticated stranger can try it.
  • User interaction: None — nobody has to be tricked into anything.
  • Scope: Unchanged — the damage stays inside the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: None.
  • Integrity impact: None.
  • Availability impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.

Weakness class

CVE-2026-15996 is classified as CWE-674: Uncontrolled Recursion. The product does not properly control the amount of recursion that takes place, consuming excessive resources, such as allocated memory or the program stack.

Affected software

CVE-2026-15996 is recorded against 1 package.

  • enterprise-server (from 3.20.0 up to 3.20.3)

Timeline and source

Published on 5 August 2026 and last revised on 18 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from NVD.

References

docs.github.com
docs.github.com
docs.github.com
docs.github.com

Other advisories for this package

enterprise-server has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

Same weakness in other software

These advisories are the same class of weakness (CWE-674: Uncontrolled Recursion) in other software:

Details

Severity HIGH
CVSS Score 7.5
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE CWE-674
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2026-08-05
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-08-18
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
enterprise-server 3.20.0 3.20.3

Similar Threats

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ⓘ Data Notice: The information presented above has been compiled from publicly available internet sources. Boteraser aggregates this data solely for informational purposes and does not independently classify, evaluate, or endorse any findings about the vulnerabilities listed. The accuracy and completeness of this information is the sole responsibility of the original publishers. Boteraser and its operators accept no liability for any decisions made based on this data.

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