docling-project docling up to 2.73.x USPTO Patent XML Parser xml.sax.parseString xml entity expansion

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as problematic, has been found in docling-project docling up to 2.73.x. Impacted is the function xml.sax.parseString of the component USPTO Patent XML Parser. Performing a manipulation results in xml entity expansion. This vulnerability is identified as CVE-2026-44020. The attack can be initiated remotely. There is not any exploit available. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in docling-project docling up to 2.73.x. This affects the function xml.sax.parseString of the component USPTO Patent XML Parser. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a xml entity expansion vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-776. The product uses XML documents and allows their structure to be defined with a Document Type Definition (DTD), but it does not properly control the number of recursive definitions of entities. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

Docling simplifies document processing by parsing diverse formats and providing integrations with the generative AI ecosystem. From 2.13.0 until 2.74.0, the USPTO patent XML parser used the standard xml.sax.parseString() without protection against XML External Entity (XXE) attacks. An attacker could craft malicious USPTO patent XML files with external entity references that could read arbitrary files from the server filesystem, perform Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) attacks, or cause denial of service through entity expansion (Billion Laughs attack). The vulnerability affects three USPTO patent format parsers: ICE (v4.x), Grant v2.5, and Application v1.x. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.74.0.

The advisory is shared at github.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-44020 since 05/04/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. No form of authentication is needed for exploitation. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available.

Upgrading to version 2.74.0 eliminates this vulnerability.

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Project Management Software

Vendor

• docling-project

Name

• docling

Version

• 2.0
• 2.1
• 2.2
• 2.3
• 2.4
• 2.5
• 2.6
• 2.7
• 2.8
• 2.9
• 2.10
• 2.11
• 2.12
• 2.13
• 2.14
• 2.15
• 2.16
• 2.17
• 2.18
• 2.19
• 2.20
• 2.21
• 2.22
• 2.23
• 2.24
• 2.25
• 2.26
• 2.27
• 2.28
• 2.29
• 2.30
• 2.31
• 2.32
• 2.33
• 2.34
• 2.35
• 2.36
• 2.37
• 2.38
• 2.39
• 2.40
• 2.41
• 2.42
• 2.43
• 2.44
• 2.45
• 2.46
• 2.47
• 2.48
• 2.49
• 2.50
• 2.51
• 2.52
• 2.53
• 2.54
• 2.55
• 2.56
• 2.57
• 2.58
• 2.59
• 2.60
• 2.61
• 2.62
• 2.63
• 2.64
• 2.65
• 2.66
• 2.67
• 2.68
• 2.69
• 2.70
• 2.71
• 2.72
• 2.73

Website

• Product: https://github.com/docling-project/docling/

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Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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