CVE-2026-55520

Publication date 28 August 2026

Last updated 2 September 2026


Ubuntu priority

Description

Protego is a pure-Python robots.txt parser with support for modern conventions. Prior to 0.6.2, protego._urlpattern._URLPattern._prepare_pattern_for_regex translates every asterisk in an Allow or Disallow directive into a lazy regular-expression wildcard, so a directive containing many asterisks creates exponential backtracking. After protego.Protego.parse processes a crafted robots.txt file, protego.Protego.can_fetch can spend an attacker-controlled period matching a near-miss URL and deny service to the crawler. The vulnerable path is src/protego/_urlpattern.py in the _URLPattern match logic. This issue is fixed in version 0.6.2.

Status

Package Ubuntu Release Status
python-protego 26.04 LTS resolute
Needs evaluation
25.10 questing Ignored end of life, was needs-triage
24.04 LTS noble
Needs evaluation
22.04 LTS jammy
Needs evaluation
20.04 LTS focal
Needs evaluation

Severity score breakdown

CVSS version: CVSS v4.0

Base score 7.1 · High

Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N


Access our resources on patching vulnerabilities