Skip to main content

OpenPrinting CUPS EUVDEUVD-2026-95469

| CVE-2026-107885 MEDIUM
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770)
2026-10-09 mitre GHSA-746c-56j9-v8rw
5.5
CVSS 3.1 · NVD
View

Attack ChainAIDerived

Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain

  1. Access
    Authenticate/reach IPP service as allowed client
  2. Delivery
    Open HTTP connection with partial Send-Document headers
  3. Exploit
    Hold connection to suppress job timeouts
  4. Execution
    Submit incomplete Create-Job entries until MaxJobs
  5. Impact
    Legitimate print submissions rejected (DoS)

Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2025 - Insecure Design
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Resource allocation limits
MITRE ATT&CK

1 technique across 1 tactic: Impact

The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up.

Exploitation Conditions

Exploitation requires (1) a client that is permitted to reach the CUPS IPP/HTTP service and (2) a configuration where Create-Job submission is allowed to that client - i.e., the attacker must be an authorized print submitter (PR:L), not an anonymous outsider. The trigger is holding an incomplete HTTP request containing parsed Send-Document headers open before operation authorization completes, which suppresses submission-timeout processing for all pending jobs. Limiting factors: impact is capped at the MaxJobs limit and is self-correcting once the held connection closes; there is no persistence, no data exposure, and no effect beyond blocking new job submissions. Default MaxJobs settings and access-control lists that restrict who may submit jobs materially reduce real-world exposure.

Impact

This is a genuinely low-priority issue despite being a real, well-described flaw. The official CVSS base score is only 3.3, and the vector (C:N/I:N/A:L, Scope Unchanged) correctly reflects that the sole impact is a bounded denial of service - exhaustion of the MaxJobs queue so that new legitimate print submissions are rejected - with no confidentiality or integrity loss and no code execution. There is a notable internal conflict in the signals: the official vector specifies AV:L (local attack vector), but the description explicitly states that 'a client allowed to reach the IPP service' can hold an incomplete HTTP request, which implies network reachability to the IPP/HTTP listener rather than purely local access - this discrepancy should be verified with the vendor advisory, and my independent assessment leans toward AV:N. PR:L is consistent with the requirement that the attacker be an authorized client permitted to submit jobs (Create-Job). No EPSS score, KEV listing, or POC was provided in the input; no public exploit identified at time of analysis. Even absent those signals, the low impact ceiling (a self-healing DoS that ends when the held connection closes) and the authentication/authorization prerequisite make this a routine-patch item rather than an emergency, though CUPS's ubiquity means defenders should still apply the fix in due course.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

An attacker who is already an authorized CUPS client (permitted to reach the IPP service and submit jobs) opens an HTTP connection and sends a partial request containing parsed Send-Document headers but never completes it. While that connection is held open, the scheduler suppresses timeout expiry for all other pending incomplete jobs; the attacker opens additional incomplete Create-Job submissions until MaxJobs is reached, after which legitimate print jobs are rejected. No public exploit code was identified in the provided data.

This Month Plan within 30 days. Why: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9).
Patch available 0.1% exploitation probability (EPSS)

Get an e-mail when this CVE is exploited, patched or re-scored. Free account.

Alert me

AnalysisAIv1 – Oct 09, 2026

Resource exhaustion in OpenPrinting CUPS (all versions through 2.4.20) lets an authorized print submitter stall the scheduler's job-timeout handling, so incomplete jobs accumulate until MaxJobs is exhausted and further legitimate print submissions are rejected. The defect in cupsdCheckJobs() suppresses submission-timeout processing for every pending job whenever any client connection holds an in-flight Send-Document operation, without matching that connection to the job being examined (CWE-770); per the independent assessment the attack surface is AV:N/AC:L with PR:L, meaning the attacker must already be a principal permitted to reach the IPP/HTTP service and allowed to submit Create-Job requests, not an anonymous outsider. Impact is transient and self-correcting once the held connection closes, with no persistence, data exposure, or effect beyond blocking new jobs; no public exploit code and no CISA KEV activity were identified at time of analysis, and the independent assessment rates this as a genuinely low-priority issue.

RemediationAI

No vendor-released patch version is identified in the available data; consult the OpenPrinting advisory at https://github.com/OpenPrinting/cups/security/advisories/GHSA-hhw5-qqmc-p6rg for the fixed release and upgrade the cupsd scheduler as soon as an exact version is confirmed. As compensating controls with explicit trade-offs: restrict IPP exposure by binding or firewalling the CUPS listener so only trusted subnets reach 631/tcp and 631/udp, which blocks the trigger outright but breaks printing for clients outside those ranges; tighten cupsd.conf with OperationPolicy and Location directives that deny Create-Job and Send-Document to untrusted hosts or print classes, which is more surgical but must be validated against each queue's workflows; reduce MaxJobs (and any per-user/per-class job limits) so an accumulation event saturates later and drains sooner, at the cost of lower concurrent print throughput; and set shorter job submission/cancel timeouts plus scheduler log monitoring for long-lived connections carrying parsed Send-Document headers, which only detects rather than prevents the suppression behavior. Because the assessed access requirement is PR:L, restricting job submission to authenticated or explicitly authorized users (and disabling anonymous printing) materially reduces exposure, though it does not fix the incorrect per-connection scoping in cupsdCheckJobs().

Affected VersionsENISA

cups 0 ≤2.4.20

Affected Packages

euvd cups no fix

Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)

Affects your stack

Affects 1 package in euvd

Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.

Technical ContextAI · show details

CUPS exposes printing over the IPP protocol, carried by HTTP requests handled by the cupsd scheduler. Job creation follows a Create-Job request that allocates a job object in the pending queue, followed by one or more Send-Document operations, and the scheduler periodically calls cupsdCheckJobs() to expire jobs that exceed their submission timeout so stale, half-submitted jobs do not consume the job table indefinitely. The flaw is a scoping error in that timeout pass: it detects that some client connection has a parsed-but-unfinished Send-Document request (headers parsed before operation authorization is completed) and, on that basis alone, skips timeout processing for all pending jobs rather than only for the job associated with that connection. This is CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling) applied to the pending-job table: a client can hold the request open and pin every incomplete job in the queue, and where Create-Job submission is permitted, incomplete jobs accumulate until MaxJobs is reached, at which point cupsd rejects new submissions. The CPE cpe:2.3:a:openprinting:cups:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* confirms the affected component is the CUPS server across the entire version range through 2.4.20. The scheduler state is in-memory and per-process, so the condition ends as soon as the held connection is closed or dropped, and there is no cross-restart persistence.

Know when Cups gets its next vulnerability

  • Watch products and get an email when something new is published
  • Check this CVE against your own stack and servers
  • Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources

No credit card · 7-day full trial

Severity by source

Vendor (mitre) PRIMARY LOW
NVD 5.5 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
vuln.today AI 4.3 MEDIUM

Description implies network reach to the IPP service (AV:N, diverging from vendor AV:L); requires an authorized job submitter (PR:L); only a bounded, self-healing availability impact (A:L).

3.1 AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
4.0 AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Red Hat 3.3 LOW

Primary rating from Vendor (mitre).

CVSS VectorNVD

Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

3
Severity Changed
Oct 20, 2026 - 21:07 NVD
LOW MEDIUM
CVSS changed
Oct 20, 2026 - 21:07 NVD
3.3 (LOW) 5.5 (MEDIUM)
CVE Published
Oct 09, 2026 - 03:54 cve.org
LOW 3.3

DescriptionNVD

OpenPrinting CUPS through 2.4.20 contains a resource-exhaustion vulnerability in the submission-timeout handling of cupsdCheckJobs(). The scheduler suppresses timeout processing for all pending jobs whenever any client connection has an in-flight Send-Document operation, without matching that connection to the job being examined. A client allowed to reach the IPP service can hold an incomplete HTTP request containing parsed Send-Document headers before operation authorization, preventing unrelated incomplete jobs from expiring. Where Create-Job submission is allowed, incomplete jobs can accumulate until MaxJobs is exhausted and further legitimate print submissions are rejected. The suppression ends when the held connection closes.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.1%
Top 99% exploitable
Prevalence
Ubiquitous
CUPS is the default printing subsystem on Linux and macOS
Data Quality
7 sources
Confidence: High
EUVD NVD CVE.org EPSS Vulnrichment MSRC Vendor GitHub VulDB

How this decision was reached

The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.

SignalValue
Severity MEDIUM
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.1%
Patch available Yes
Active threat No
Deciding rule
MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9)
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision· derived
Scheduled
Exploitation
Poc
System Exposure· derived
Small
Automatable
No
Human Impact· derived
High
Technical Impact
Partial

Priority Score

28
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +28
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.

More in Cups

View all
CVE-2015-1158 CRITICAL POC
10.0 Jun 26

The add_job function in scheduler/ipp.c in cupsd in CUPS before 2.0.3 performs incorrect free operations for multiple-va

CVE-2015-1159 MEDIUM POC
4.3 Jun 26

Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the cgi_puts function in cgi-bin/template.c in the template engine in CUPS b

CVE-2012-5519 HIGH POC
7.2 Nov 20

CUPS 1.4.4, when running in certain Linux distributions such as Debian GNU/Linux, stores the web interface administrator

CVE-2023-34241 HIGH POC
7.1 Jun 22

OpenPrinting CUPS is a standards-based, open source printing system for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Rat

CVE-2023-4504 HIGH POC
7.0 Sep 21

Due to failure in validating the length provided by an attacker-crafted PPD PostScript document, CUPS and libppd are sus

CVE-2025-61915 MEDIUM POC
6.7 Nov 29

OpenPrinting CUPS is an open source printing system for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Rated medium severi

CVE-2025-58364 MEDIUM POC
6.5 Sep 11

OpenPrinting CUPS is an open source printing system for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Rated medium severi

CVE-2025-58436 MEDIUM POC
5.5 Nov 29

OpenPrinting CUPS is an open source printing system for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Rated medium severi

CVE-2023-32324 MEDIUM POC
5.5 Jun 01

OpenPrinting CUPS is an open source printing system. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is no authenti

CVE-2018-6553 HIGH
8.8 Aug 10

The CUPS AppArmor profile incorrectly confined the dnssd backend due to use of hard links. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.8

CVE-2014-9679 MEDIUM
6.8 Feb 19

Integer underflow in the cupsRasterReadPixels function in filter/raster.c in CUPS before 2.0.2 allows remote attackers t

CVE-2022-26691 MEDIUM
6.7 May 26

A logic issue was addressed with improved state management. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.7), this vulnerability is low

Vendor StatusVendor

This site uses cookies essential for authentication and security. No tracking or analytics cookies are used. Privacy Policy