CVE-2026-59942: Dompdf Resource Exhaustion DoS - Proof of Concept

Vulnerability Type: Denial of Service (DoS) via Resource Exhaustion
Affected Software: Dompdf <= 3.1.5
Credits: Fabian Rosales (far00t01).

Disclaimer

This repository and its content are provided for educational and research purposes only. The author is not responsible for any misuse, damage, or illegal activities conducted with the information provided here. Always obtain authorization before testing target environments.

Summary

Dompdf v3.1.5 is vulnerable to a Denial of Service (DoS) attack via resource exhaustion. An attacker can crash the PHP process by providing a specially crafted HTML document containing a single image with massive dimensions (e.g., 30,000x30,000 pixels).

While Dompdf implements internal checks to validate image dimensions, these can be bypassed by using a high-entropy image (such as random noise) encoded in Base64 and wrapped in specific CSS containers.

Technical Deep Dive:

Standard solid-color images can often be optimized by compression algorithms or rendering engines. However, a high-entropy noise image forces the PHP engine to process each of the 900 million pixels individually. When render() is called, the engine attempts to handle the uncompressed bitmap in memory and calculate the layout for every high-variance pixel data point. This leads to:

100% CPU Saturation: The rendering thread hangs indefinitely trying to process the pixel stream.
Process Termination: The massive memory allocation (verified at ~1.2 GB for a single image) triggers a Fatal Error or an OS-level SIGKILL (OOM), resulting in an immediate Denial of Service.

Details

The vulnerability exists because the dimension validation happens early, but the resource allocation for calculating the object's bounding box and internal buffers during the rendering phase does not strictly limit the cumulative CPU time or memory usage for a single object that has passed the initial check.

Proof of Concept Results

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d1f5a07b-a7c5-4b5e-84b5-1e47e73522d9

Install Dompdf v3.1.5 via Composer.

composer require dompdf/dompdf:3.1.5

Use the following Python script to generate the malicious payload (exploit.py):
Use the following Python script to monitor the system resources in a separate terminal (monitor.py):
Create a file named render.php. This script acts as the vulnerable entry point, mimicking a standard implementation of the Dompdf library:
Execute the PHP process, providing the payload via stdin. We use a 2GB memory limit to demonstrate that the crash is caused by uncontrolled allocation rather than a restrictive server configuration:

php -d memory_limit=2G render.php < payload.html

The engine attempts to process every pixel of the high-entropy image. The monitor.py script will record 99.8% CPU saturation, followed by a PHP Fatal Error (Allowed memory size exhausted) as Dompdf attempts to allocate ~1.2 GB in a single operation. The process is then terminated, confirming the Denial of Service.

The following logs demonstrate the successful exploitation of the resource exhaustion vulnerability. Despite a generous 2GB memory limit provided to the PHP process, a single high-entropy image causes a fatal crash.

Payload Generation:

python3 exploit.py 
[*] Generating 30000x30000 High-Entropy Noise Bomb...
[+] High-entropy payload saved to: payload.html

Target Execution & Denial of Service:

php -d memory_limit=2G render.php < payload.html

Output
[*] Starting Dompdf rendering process...
PHP Fatal error:  Allowed memory size of 2147483648 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 1200355712 bytes) in /home/far00t/dompdf_exploit/vendor/dompdf/dompdf/src/Dompdf.php on line 490

While executing the render.php process, the monitor.py script captured the following telemetry, showing the impact on system resources:

python3 monitor.py 
[*] Searching for PHP processes... (Press Ctrl+C to stop)
[MONITOR] PID: 210767 | RAM: 953.17 MB | CPU: 99.7%

Key Findings from Telemetry:

CPU Starvation: The process reached a sustained 99.7% CPU usage. In a production environment, this level of saturation on a single-threaded PHP process effectively denies service to any other task on that core.
Rapid Memory Inflation: The resident memory (RSS) climbed to 953.17 MB just before the engine attempted the final allocation of 1.2 GB that triggered the Fatal error.
Bypass Confirmation: The telemetry proves that Dompdf's internal "safe" limits were bypassed, as the engine proceeded to attempt a massive bitmap decompression that the host environment could not sustain.

Impact

An unauthenticated remote attacker can cause a complete Denial of Service on the web server by submitting a crafted HTML string. This affects any application that allows users to provide HTML content or URLs that are subsequently converted to PDF using Dompdf.

CVE-2026-59941

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