diff --git a/django/utils/html.py b/django/utils/html.py
index 44a3f16459e..7a33d5f68d5 100644
--- a/django/utils/html.py
+++ b/django/utils/html.py
@@ -187,8 +187,8 @@ def strip_tags(value):
value = str(value)
while '<' in value and '>' in value:
new_value = _strip_once(value)
- if len(new_value) >= len(value):
- # _strip_once was not able to detect more tags
+ if value.count('<') == new_value.count('<'):
+ # _strip_once wasn't able to detect more tags.
break
value = new_value
return value
diff --git a/docs/releases/1.11.23.txt b/docs/releases/1.11.23.txt
index 6058bb8a818..c95ffd9a503 100644
--- a/docs/releases/1.11.23.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/1.11.23.txt
@@ -19,3 +19,20 @@ filters, which were thus vulnerable.
The regular expressions used by ``Truncator`` have been simplified in order to
avoid potential backtracking issues. As a consequence, trailing punctuation may
now at times be included in the truncated output.
+
+CVE-2019-14233: Denial-of-service possibility in ``strip_tags()``
+=================================================================
+
+Due to the behavior of the underlying ``HTMLParser``,
+:func:`django.utils.html.strip_tags` would be extremely slow to evaluate
+certain inputs containing large sequences of nested incomplete HTML entities.
+The ``strip_tags()`` method is used to implement the corresponding
+:tfilter:`striptags` template filter, which was thus also vulnerable.
+
+``strip_tags()`` now avoids recursive calls to ``HTMLParser`` when progress
+removing tags, but necessarily incomplete HTML entities, stops being made.
+
+Remember that absolutely NO guarantee is provided about the results of
+``strip_tags()`` being HTML safe. So NEVER mark safe the result of a
+``strip_tags()`` call without escaping it first, for example with
+:func:`django.utils.html.escape`.
diff --git a/docs/releases/2.1.11.txt b/docs/releases/2.1.11.txt
index f4ee3dbd301..9cae1e6f2ef 100644
--- a/docs/releases/2.1.11.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/2.1.11.txt
@@ -19,3 +19,20 @@ filters, which were thus vulnerable.
The regular expressions used by ``Truncator`` have been simplified in order to
avoid potential backtracking issues. As a consequence, trailing punctuation may
now at times be included in the truncated output.
+
+CVE-2019-14233: Denial-of-service possibility in ``strip_tags()``
+=================================================================
+
+Due to the behavior of the underlying ``HTMLParser``,
+:func:`django.utils.html.strip_tags` would be extremely slow to evaluate
+certain inputs containing large sequences of nested incomplete HTML entities.
+The ``strip_tags()`` method is used to implement the corresponding
+:tfilter:`striptags` template filter, which was thus also vulnerable.
+
+``strip_tags()`` now avoids recursive calls to ``HTMLParser`` when progress
+removing tags, but necessarily incomplete HTML entities, stops being made.
+
+Remember that absolutely NO guarantee is provided about the results of
+``strip_tags()`` being HTML safe. So NEVER mark safe the result of a
+``strip_tags()`` call without escaping it first, for example with
+:func:`django.utils.html.escape`.
diff --git a/docs/releases/2.2.4.txt b/docs/releases/2.2.4.txt
index b22aa42482e..c9653736775 100644
--- a/docs/releases/2.2.4.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/2.2.4.txt
@@ -20,6 +20,23 @@ The regular expressions used by ``Truncator`` have been simplified in order to
avoid potential backtracking issues. As a consequence, trailing punctuation may
now at times be included in the truncated output.
+CVE-2019-14233: Denial-of-service possibility in ``strip_tags()``
+=================================================================
+
+Due to the behavior of the underlying ``HTMLParser``,
+:func:`django.utils.html.strip_tags` would be extremely slow to evaluate
+certain inputs containing large sequences of nested incomplete HTML entities.
+The ``strip_tags()`` method is used to implement the corresponding
+:tfilter:`striptags` template filter, which was thus also vulnerable.
+
+``strip_tags()`` now avoids recursive calls to ``HTMLParser`` when progress
+removing tags, but necessarily incomplete HTML entities, stops being made.
+
+Remember that absolutely NO guarantee is provided about the results of
+``strip_tags()`` being HTML safe. So NEVER mark safe the result of a
+``strip_tags()`` call without escaping it first, for example with
+:func:`django.utils.html.escape`.
+
Bugfixes
========
diff --git a/tests/utils_tests/test_html.py b/tests/utils_tests/test_html.py
index 8057fdc0510..5cc2d9b95d6 100644
--- a/tests/utils_tests/test_html.py
+++ b/tests/utils_tests/test_html.py
@@ -88,6 +88,8 @@ class TestUtilsHtml(SimpleTestCase):
('&gotcha<>', '&gotcha<>'),
('ript>test</script>', 'ript>test'),
('&h', 'alert()h'),
+ ('>br>br>br>X', 'XX'),
)
for value, output in items:
with self.subTest(value=value, output=output):