CVE-2026-7541: Denial of service vulnerability in GitHub Enterprise Server allowed service disruption via unauthenticated API endpoint
Description
A denial of service vulnerability was identified in GitHub Enterprise Server that allowed an unauthenticated attacker to cause service disruption by sending crafted requests with deeply nested JSON payloads to an unauthenticated API endpoint. The endpoint parsed user-controlled JSON request bodies without size or depth limits, causing excessive CPU and memory consumption. This vulnerability affected all versions of GitHub Enterprise Server prior to 3.21 and was fixed in versions 3.20.2, 3.19.6, 3.18.9, 3.17.15, and 3.16.18. This vulnerability was reported via the GitHub Bug Bounty program.
Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H · CWE-770
Tracked companies
Mapped from the CVE’s affected-product data, NVD CPE matches, vendor advisories or package feeds. A mapping means the vendor’s software is named, not that its hosted service was exposed.
Status incidents that name it
No tracked status incident names this CVE.
Affected vendors and products
GitHub: Enterprise Server
References
- CVE record on cve.org (opens in new tab)
- NVD entry (opens in new tab)
- docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server@3.16/admin/release-notes (opens in new tab)
- docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server@3.17/admin/release-notes (opens in new tab)
- docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server@3.18/admin/release-notes (opens in new tab)
- docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server@3.19/admin/release-notes (opens in new tab)
- docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server@3.20/admin/release-notes (opens in new tab)
- CVE records from the CVE Program (cve.org). CVE® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. (opens in new tab)
- This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. (opens in new tab)
- Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog from CISA. (opens in new tab)
- EPSS scores from FIRST (Exploit Prediction Scoring System). (opens in new tab)