CVE-2026-49485 PUBLISHED

HAPI FHIR: ReDoS via FHIRPath matches()/replaceMatches() in FHIR Validator HTTP Endpoint

Assigner: GitHub_M
Reserved: 30.05.2026 Published: 17.07.2026 Updated: 17.07.2026

HAPI FHIR is a complete implementation of the HL7 FHIR standard for healthcare interoperability in Java. Prior to 6.9.9 and 6.9.4.2, all implementations of FHIRPathEngine accept arbitrary FHIRPath expressions and evaluate them without input validation, and the FHIRPath functions matches(), matchesFull(), and replaceMatches() pass user-controlled regular expressions to Java's Pattern.compile() and String.replaceAll() through an incomplete timeout utility. An attacker can send a resource containing an evil regex pattern that causes catastrophic backtracking, exhausting CPU resources and causing denial of service in the FHIR Validator HTTP endpoint and affected org.hl7.fhir.* modules. This issue is fixed in versions 6.9.9 and 6.9.4.2.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS Score: 7.5

Product Status

Vendor hapifhir
Product org.hl7.fhir.core
Versions
  • Version < 6.9.4.2 is affected
  • Version >= 6.9.5, < 6.9.9 is affected

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-1333: Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity CWE
  • CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption CWE