Answer in brief
CVE-2026-13221 records a Critical severity (CVSS 9.1) vulnerability in Perl versions before 5.40.5-RC1, from 5.41.0 before 5.42.3-RC1, from 5.43.0 before 5.43.10 produce silently incorrect regular expression matches when an alternation of more than 65535 fixed string branches is compiled into a trie in Perl_study_chunk. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps SHAY/perl (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
Analysis pending evidence review
HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.
CVSS is 9.1. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.
Analysis status
Analysis pending evidence review
Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.
The current feed maps SHAY/perl (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
| Package | Affected range | Fixed version |
|---|---|---|
| SHAY/perlgeneric | 0 | Not reported |
Published upstream
Jul 13, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordSource modified
Sep 8, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordFirst seen by HOL
Jul 13, 2026
Perl versions before 5.40.5-RC1, from 5.41.0 before 5.42.3-RC1, from 5.43.0 before 5.43.10 produce silently incorrect regular expression matches when an alternation of more than 65535 fixed string branches is compiled into a trie in Perl_study_chunk. When such branches are combined into a trie, the delta between the first branch and the shared tail is stored in a 16-bit field. A branch count above 65535 overflows the field, and the trie's match decision table is truncated with no warning or error. A pattern of this shape produces false positive matches (matching strings it should not) and false negative matches (failing to match strings it should). When such a pattern gates an access or filtering decision, the result is wrong.
Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.