hapifhir FHIR up to 6.9.8 FHIRPathEngine matches/matchesFull/replaceMatches incorrect regex

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability described as problematic has been identified in hapifhir FHIR up to 6.9.8. This affects the function matches/matchesFull/replaceMatches of the component FHIRPathEngine. The manipulation results in incorrect regex. This vulnerability is identified as CVE-2026-49485. The attack can be executed remotely. There is not any exploit available.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in hapifhir FHIR up to 6.9.8. It has been classified as problematic. Affected is the function matches/matchesFull/replaceMatches of the component FHIRPathEngine. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a incorrect regex vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-185. The product specifies a regular expression in a way that causes data to be improperly matched or compared. This is going to have an impact on availability. CVE summarizes:

HAPI FHIR is a complete implementation of the HL7 FHIR standard for healthcare interoperability in Java. Prior to 6.9.9 and 6.9.4.2, all implementations of FHIRPathEngine accept arbitrary FHIRPath expressions and evaluate them without input validation, and the FHIRPath functions matches(), matchesFull(), and replaceMatches() pass user-controlled regular expressions to Java's Pattern.compile() and String.replaceAll() through an incomplete timeout utility. An attacker can send a resource containing an evil regex pattern that causes catastrophic backtracking, exhausting CPU resources and causing denial of service in the FHIR Validator HTTP endpoint and affected org.hl7.fhir.* modules. This issue is fixed in versions 6.9.9 and 6.9.4.2.

The advisory is available at github.com. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-49485 since 05/30/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to launch the attack remotely. The exploitation doesn't require any form of authentication. Technical details are known, but there is no available exploit.

Upgrading to version 6.9.4.2 or 6.9.9 eliminates this vulnerability.

If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.

Productinfo

Vendor

• hapifhir

Name

• FHIR

Version

• 6.9.0
• 6.9.1
• 6.9.2
• 6.9.3
• 6.9.4
• 6.9.5
• 6.9.6
• 6.9.7
• 6.9.8

CPE 2.3info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CPE 2.2info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CVSSv4info

CVSSv3info

CVSSv2info

Exploitinginfo

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Countermeasuresinfo

Timelineinfo

Sourcesinfo

Entryinfo

If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.

Discussion