phpoffice/phpspreadsheet security advisory

CVE-2026-40902: PhpSpreadsheet has CPU Denial of Service via Unbounded Row Number in XLSX Row Dimensions

CVE-2026-40902 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in the PHP package phpoffice/phpspreadsheet (CVSS 7.5), published 12 May 2026. The advisory does not name a fixed version. It can be exploited without an account.

high 7.5 published 2026-05-12 · updated 2026-10-26

Affected versions: <= 1.30.3
>= 2.0.0, <= 2.1.15
>= 2.2.0, <= 2.4.4
>= 3.3.0, <= 3.10.4
>= 4.0.0, <= 5.6.0
Fixed in: not stated
Newest release: 5.10.0
Severity: High · CVSS 7.5
Type: Denial of service
CWE-770
Exploited in the wild: Not on the CISA KEV list
checked 2026-11-04

Is your phpoffice/phpspreadsheet version affected?

Run composer show phpoffice/phpspreadsheet in your project, then enter the version. We check it against this and every other known phpoffice/phpspreadsheet advisory.

Who can exploit CVE-2026-40902

Access: No account. Anyone who can send a request to an app that uses the affected code.

CVSS vector (scored by GitHub): CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Your app is only exposed if it uses the affected part of phpoffice/phpspreadsheet. The advisory below says which part that is. If you are not sure, upgrade anyway: it costs less than finding out.

How to fix CVE-2026-40902 in phpoffice/phpspreadsheet

Find the installed version: composer show phpoffice/phpspreadsheet. If you never required it yourself, composer why phpoffice/phpspreadsheet shows which package pulls it in.
Update it: composer update phpoffice/phpspreadsheet --with-all-dependencies.
If Composer will not go that high, your composer.json constraint is holding it back. Widen it (for example "phpoffice/phpspreadsheet": "^5.10.0" if you can take that version), or upgrade the package that requires it.
Run composer audit. It reads the same advisory data and should no longer list CVE-2026-40902.
Commit composer.lock and deploy it. On the server, run composer install --no-dev from the lock file, not composer update.

If you cannot upgrade yet

General hardening for denial of service issues while the upgrade waits. None of it replaces the fix.

Rate-limit the affected endpoint and cap request body, header and upload sizes at the web server.
If your app does not use the affected feature, note that in your audit, but still plan the upgrade.

The CVE-2026-40902 advisory

PhpSpreadsheet is a pure PHP library for reading and writing spreadsheet files. Prior to 1.30.4, 2.1.16, 2.4.5, 3.10.5, and 5.7.0, the XLSX reader's ColumnAndRowAttributes::readRowAttributes() method reads row numbers from XML attributes without validating them against the spreadsheet maximum row limit (AddressRange::MAX_ROW = 1,048,576). An attacker can craft a minimal XLSX file (~1.6KB) containing a <row r="999999999"/> element that inflates cachedHighestRow to 999,999,999, causing any subsequent row iteration to attempt ~1 billion loop cycles and exhaust CPU resources. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.30.4, 2.1.16, 2.4.5, 3.10.5, and 5.7.0.

Description from the CVE record, published by GitHub (the CVE Numbering Authority), via the NVD entry for CVE-2026-40902. Advisory title: “PhpSpreadsheet has CPU Denial of Service via Unbounded Row Number in XLSX Row Dimensions”.

References

GitHub advisory GHSA-7c6m-4442-2x6m github.com

Other phpoffice/phpspreadsheet advisories

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Where this data comes from

Affected and fixed versions: the Packagist security advisories API (GitHub Advisory Database and FriendsOfPHP), the same data composer audit uses. Synced 2026-11-03.
Description, score, weakness and references: NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD), checked 2026-11-04. This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
Exploited-in-the-wild status: the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, checked 2026-11-04.
Compiled by Daniel Lasek at Laskyr from the sources above. The summary, “who can exploit it”, “how to fix it” and hardening sections are our plain-English reading of the record and are generated from it. The quoted description is the record's own text. Spot an error? Tell us.