CVE-2026-47317 Overview
CVE-2026-47317 is an uncontrolled recursion vulnerability [CWE-674] in Samsung Open Source Escargot, a lightweight JavaScript engine designed for resource-constrained environments. The flaw allows excessive memory allocation when the engine processes specially crafted input that triggers unbounded recursive calls. Exploitation results in a denial of service through resource exhaustion on the host process. The vulnerability affects Escargot commit 590345cc6258317c5da850d846ce6baaf2afc2d3 and requires local access with user interaction to trigger.
Critical Impact
An attacker who convinces a user to execute malicious JavaScript can exhaust available memory and crash the Escargot runtime, producing a high-availability impact on affected systems.
Affected Products
- Samsung Open Source Escargot JavaScript engine
- Escargot commit 590345cc6258317c5da850d846ce6baaf2afc2d3
- Downstream applications and embedded products that integrate the affected Escargot build
Discovery Timeline
- 2026-05-19 - CVE-2026-47317 published to NVD
- 2026-05-19 - Last updated in NVD database
Technical Details for CVE-2026-47317
Vulnerability Analysis
The vulnerability resides in Escargot's parser or evaluator path, where recursive logic processes nested or self-referential structures without a depth bound. Crafted JavaScript input causes the engine to recurse indefinitely, expanding the native call stack and triggering excessive heap allocation. The runtime ultimately exhausts memory or stack space, terminating the process. The attack vector is local and requires the victim to load attacker-supplied script content into the Escargot engine.
The issue is classified under [CWE-674] Uncontrolled Recursion. The impact is limited to availability, with no confidentiality or integrity compromise. Because Escargot frequently runs on embedded devices and IoT platforms, process termination can degrade or disable the host application until manual recovery.
Root Cause
The root cause is the absence of a recursion depth limit or guard within an affected code path in Escargot. When the engine encounters input that produces unbounded recursive descent, no early termination condition prevents continued allocation. The fix proposed in the upstream GitHub Pull Request by Samsung introduces bounding logic to halt processing before resource exhaustion occurs.
Attack Vector
An attacker prepares a malicious JavaScript file or payload that exercises the vulnerable recursive path. The victim loads the payload into an application embedding Escargot. The engine begins recursive processing and consumes memory until the process aborts or the operating system kills it. Network exploitation is not required, and no elevated privileges are needed.
No verified public exploit code is available for this issue. Refer to the upstream GitHub Pull Request by Samsung for the technical fix and reproduction context.
Detection Methods for CVE-2026-47317
Indicators of Compromise
- Unexpected termination or out-of-memory crashes of processes hosting the Escargot engine.
- Sudden spikes in resident memory consumption tied to a JavaScript workload.
- Repeated restarts of embedded applications shortly after loading untrusted script content.
Detection Strategies
- Monitor process telemetry for Escargot-hosting binaries showing rapid memory growth followed by abnormal exit codes.
- Inspect application logs for parser or evaluator stack traces referencing deep recursion before termination.
- Correlate user-initiated file or URL loads with subsequent crash events to identify malicious input.
Monitoring Recommendations
- Enable resource accounting on hosts and devices running Escargot to capture memory and CPU baselines.
- Forward crash dumps and process exit telemetry to a centralized log platform for retrospective analysis.
- Alert on repeated abnormal terminations of the same Escargot-embedded process within a short window.
How to Mitigate CVE-2026-47317
Immediate Actions Required
- Update Escargot to a build that includes the patch from upstream pull request 1565.
- Restrict execution of untrusted JavaScript content in applications that embed Escargot.
- Apply process-level memory and CPU limits to contain resource exhaustion conditions.
Patch Information
Samsung published the fix through the upstream GitHub Pull Request by Samsung. Rebuild and redeploy any product, firmware, or application that statically links or bundles Escargot at commit 590345cc6258317c5da850d846ce6baaf2afc2d3 or earlier vulnerable revisions.
Workarounds
- Reject or sanitize JavaScript input from untrusted sources before passing it to the Escargot runtime.
- Run Escargot-embedded applications under cgroup or sandbox limits that cap memory and stack size.
- Implement an external watchdog that restarts the host process after abnormal termination to maintain availability.
# Configuration example: constrain an Escargot-embedded process with systemd resource limits
# /etc/systemd/system/escargot-app.service.d/limits.conf
[Service]
MemoryMax=128M
TasksMax=64
LimitSTACK=8388608
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=2s
Disclaimer: This content was generated using AI. While we strive for accuracy, please verify critical information with official sources.
