Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-44020

High

Published: 24 June 2026

Published
24 June 2026
Modified
30 June 2026
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0033 25.3th percentile
Risk Priority 55 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-44020 is a high-severity XML Entity Expansion (CWE-776) vulnerability in Docling Docling. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Data from Local System (T1005); ranked at the 25.3th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Docling simplifies document processing by parsing diverse formats and providing integrations with the generative AI ecosystem. From 2.13.0 until 2.74.0, the USPTO patent XML parser used the standard xml.sax.parseString() without protection against XML External Entity (XXE) attacks. An attacker could…

more

craft malicious USPTO patent XML files with external entity references that could read arbitrary files from the server filesystem, perform Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) attacks, or cause denial of service through entity expansion (Billion Laughs attack). The vulnerability affects three USPTO patent format parsers: ICE (v4.x), Grant v2.5, and Application v1.x. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.74.0.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1005 Data from Local System Collection
Adversaries may search local system sources, such as file systems, configuration files, local databases, virtual machine files, or process memory, to find files of interest and sensitive data prior to Exfiltration.
T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
Why these techniques?

XXE in XML parser directly enables arbitrary local file read (T1005) and DoS via entity expansion (T1499.004).

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

Affected Assets

docling
docling
2.13.0 — 2.74.0

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-611

Penetration testing includes XML external entity payloads, detecting XXE vulnerabilities and enabling their mitigation.

addresses: CWE-611

Identifies XML external entity processing via monitoring of unusual file/network access or resource usage.

References