Cpanel::JSON::XS versions from 4.33 before 4.80 for Perl accept malformed UTF-8 in bare hash keys under allow_barekey in decode_hv. With utf8 and allow_barekey, which relaxed enables, a quoted key is validated as UTF-8 but a bare key's bytes are stored as a UTF-8 flagged string without any check. Malformed UTF-8, control bytes and backslashes reach the decoded hash, while malformed UTF-8 and control bytes in a quoted key or a value are rejected. Later operations on the key, including lc, uc or encoding the hash again, die with a malformed UTF-8 error.
Fix
Nothing published yet: no patch, vendor advisory or mitigation reference on NVD, no vendor advisory in the News for this CVE, not in CISA's KEV, no fixed package version. BaselineWatch does not guess at one.
Change history 3
- StatusAwaiting Analysis → PublishedNVD modified 2026-10-19 18:11
- StatusReceived → Awaiting AnalysisNVD modified 2026-10-19 20:50
- First seenunscoredNVD modified 2026-10-19 19:17
Affected (CPE criteria) 0
NVD has not attached CPE configurations yet.