Symfony Yaml: Small Documents Can Tie Up the Parser for Minutes

Published as "Exponential and Quadratic Parse Times in the YAML Parser Let a Single Document Hold a Process"

high Symfony Symfony components · Last reviewed Nov 10, 2026

CVE: CVE-2026-123792
GHSA: None
Packagist: PKSA-wjdj-twpp-mc62
Reported: Nov 4, 2026

Lets an attacker keep a PHP worker busy with one small YAML document in apps that parse untrusted YAML, including some #[MapRequestPayload] endpoints.

Affected and fixed versions

In 2 packages: symfony/symfony and symfony/yaml. Find the row for the version you run, and update to the release next to it.

If you run	Update to	Support
8.1.0 – 8.1.10	8.1.11	Supported
7.4.0 – 7.4.22	7.4.23	Supported
6.4.0 – 6.4.49	6.4.50	Supported
5.4.0 – 5.4.55	5.4.56	Supported

Show 16 older branches, no longer supported

8.0.0 – 8.0.x	8.1.11
7.0.0 – 7.0.x	7.4.23
7.1.0 – 7.1.x	7.4.23
7.2.0 – 7.2.x	7.4.23
7.3.0 – 7.3.x	7.4.23
6.0.0 – 6.0.x	6.4.50
6.1.0 – 6.1.x	6.4.50
6.2.0 – 6.2.x	6.4.50
6.3.0 – 6.3.x	6.4.50
2.0.0 – 2.x	5.4.56
3.0.0 – 3.x	5.4.56
4.0.0 – 4.x	5.4.56
5.0.0 – 5.0.x	5.4.56
5.1.0 – 5.1.x	5.4.56
5.2.0 – 5.2.x	5.4.56
5.3.0 – 5.3.x	5.4.56

Upgrade

Run the line for the branch you are on. 1 other package listed above is affected too; update it the same way.

composer require symfony/symfony:^8.1.11
composer require symfony/symfony:^7.4.23
composer require symfony/symfony:^6.4.50
composer require symfony/symfony:^5.4.56

What this means

An attacker can keep a PHP worker busy for seconds or minutes with one small YAML document. Several parts of the YAML parser took time that grew much faster than the size of the document. Send enough of these and your app stops answering, which is a denial of service.

Who is affected

Any code that parses untrusted YAML with symfony/yaml (also part of symfony/symfony), with the default flags.

The Symfony advisory says that on 7.4 and later this includes #[MapRequestPayload] endpoints when the Yaml component is installed and the endpoint doesn't restrict acceptFormat. There, one unauthenticated request with a YAML content type is enough, even with a JSON body. On 6.4, #[MapRequestPayload] only accepts YAML when the app registers a yaml request format.

Apps that only parse their own YAML files, such as config, aren't exposed.

What to do

Update to 5.4.56, 6.4.50, 7.4.23 or 8.1.11. If you're on 8.0, update to 8.1.11. The fix makes parse time grow in step with the document. On 7.4 and later, #[MapRequestPayload] also stops decoding YAML and CSV payloads unless acceptFormat lists them.

Reported by Sebastian Bergmann.

Check your app with an agent

Paste this into a coding agent that can read your project, such as Claude Code, Codex or Amp. It checks your composer.lock against the versions above and tells you what to update, without changing anything.

Check whether the PHP project you have access to is affected by this security advisory, and tell me what to update. Do a read-only check: don't edit files, don't run composer update or composer require, and don't try to reproduce the flaw.

Advisory: Symfony Yaml: Small Documents Can Tie Up the Parser for Minutes (CVE-2026-123792)
Details: https://phpnews.net/security/symfony/pksa-wjdj-twpp-mc62

Affected versions, as Composer constraints:
- symfony/symfony, symfony/yaml: >=2.0.0,<3.0.0|>=3.0.0,<4.0.0|>=4.0.0,<5.0.0|>=5.0.0,<5.1.0|>=5.1.0,<5.2.0|>=5.2.0,<5.3.0|>=5.3.0,<5.4.0|>=5.4.0,<5.4.56|>=6.0.0,<6.1.0|>=6.1.0,<6.2.0|>=6.2.0,<6.3.0|>=6.3.0,<6.4.0|>=6.4.0,<6.4.50|>=7.0.0,<7.1.0|>=7.1.0,<7.2.0|>=7.2.0,<7.3.0|>=7.3.0,<7.4.0|>=7.4.0,<7.4.23|>=8.0.0,<8.1.0|>=8.1.0,<8.1.11

Fixed releases on branches that still get security fixes:
- 8.1.0 – 8.1.10: update to 8.1.11
- 7.4.0 – 7.4.22: update to 7.4.23
- 6.4.0 – 6.4.49: update to 6.4.50
- 5.4.0 – 5.4.55: update to 5.4.56

1. Find every composer.lock in the project outside vendor/ (a monorepo can have one per app) and read the installed version of each package above. Packages installed as dependencies of other packages count too.
2. Compare each installed version with its constraint: "|" separates alternative ranges, and "," means both bounds apply.
3. For each affected install, read "What this means" at https://phpnews.net/security/symfony/pksa-wjdj-twpp-mc62 and check whether the project meets the conditions it describes (a feature in use, a config value, a driver). Say which conditions you could check and which you couldn't.
4. Report a table: lock file | package | installed version | affected (yes, no or unknown) | conditions met (yes, no or unknown) | update to | evidence. For each affected package, give the command that would fix it, without running it: composer update <package> --with-dependencies when it is only installed as a dependency of another package, or composer require with the fixed version when composer.json requires it directly. If the installed version is on a branch with no fixed release listed, say it needs a move to a newer branch.

Sources

← All Symfony advisories