CVE-2026-87082 PUBLISHED

Net::IDN::Punycode versions before 2.590 for Perl hang, crash or return a wrong label via unvalidated malformed UTF-8 in encode_punycode

Assigner: CPANSec
Reserved: 08.09.2026 Published: 22.09.2026 Updated: 22.09.2026

Net::IDN::Punycode versions before 2.590 for Perl hang, crash or return a wrong label via unvalidated malformed UTF-8 in encode_punycode.

Neither backend checks that its input is well-formed UTF-8, so a string with the UTF-8 flag set over malformed bytes, as the :utf8 PerlIO layer produces from any malformed input, reaches the encoder unchecked. On perl 5.32 and later the XS backend reports a malformed sequence with a length of (STRLEN)-1, so the scan steps back one byte instead of forward and never ends. On earlier perls the XS returns a valid label for a different name. The pure-Perl backend runs a regex over the flagged string. Depending on the bytes, it aborts with SIGBUS on perl 5.28 and later, dies with a panic, or returns a wrong label.

The documented conversion functions match the label against Unicode properties first and that match dies on such a string, so only a direct call to encode_punycode reaches the defect. The decoder is not affected.

A direct caller encoding attacker-supplied bytes hangs, crashes or gets a label for a name the input never held.

Product Status

Package Collection https://cpan.org/modules
Package Name Net-IDN-Encode
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 0 to 2.590 (excl.)

Solutions

Upgrade to Net-IDN-Encode 2.590-TRIAL or later.

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-835 Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop') CWE
  • CWE-1286 Improper Validation of Syntactic Correctness of Input CWE