# Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity (CWE-1333)

The product uses a regular expression with an inefficient, possibly exponential worst-case computational complexity that consumes excessive CPU cycles.

**Stack:** Go

- Prevalence: Medium 3 languages covered
- Impact: High 1 high-severity rules
- Prevention: Documented 3 fix examples

**OWASP:** Injection (A03:2021-Injection) - #3

## Description

Certain regular expression patterns can take exponential time to evaluate on certain inputs (ReDoS). Attackers can craft inputs that cause the regex engine to consume excessive CPU time, leading to denial of service.

## Prevention

Prevention strategies for ReDoS based on 1 Shoulder detection rules.

### Go

Avoid nested quantifiers in regex; use specific character classes instead

## Consequences

- DoS

## Mitigations

- Avoid nested quantifiers and overlapping alternations in regexes
- Use regex timeout mechanisms
- Consider using non-backtracking regex engines

## Detection

- Total rules: 3
- Languages: go, javascript, typescript, python

## Rules by Language

### Go (1 rules)

- **Regular Expression Denial of Service** [MEDIUM]: Regex pattern with nested quantifiers causes catastrophic backtracking.
  - Remediation: Avoid nested quantifiers like (a+)+. Use possessive quantifiers or atomic groups.

```go
// Avoid patterns like: (a+)+, (.*)*
// Use specific patterns instead
re := regexp.MustCompile(`^[a-z]+$`)
```

Learn more: https://shoulder.dev/learn/go/cwe-1333/regex-dos