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.

Project Subscriptions

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Advisories
Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-wjmf-p669-5m5p Protego has exponential backtracking ReDoS in robots.txt URL wildcard matching
Fixes

Solution

No solution given by the vendor.


Workaround

No workaround given by the vendor.

History

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 19:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
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.
Title Protego: Exponential backtracking ReDoS in robots.txt URL wildcard matching
Weaknesses CWE-1333
CWE-400
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 7.1, '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'}


Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-08-28T18:42:38.334Z

Reserved: 2026-06-16T22:44:22.284Z

Link: CVE-2026-55520

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-08-28T20:18:28.100

Modified: 2026-08-28T20:18:28.100

Link: CVE-2026-55520

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses