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CVE-2026-44518

liboqs: XMSS Buffer Overread Bug

Published
Last modified
published
Not listed in CISA KEV
Fix
Fixed in 0.16.0
None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
  • Exploitation: none
  • Automatable: yes
  • Technical impact: partial

Summary

liboqs is a C-language cryptographic library that provides implementations of post-quantum cryptography algorithms. Prior to 0.16.0, an out-of-bounds read has been identified in the XMSS and XMSS^MT stateful signature verification code. When the verification function is called with a signature buffer shorter than the expected signature size for the given parameter set, the implementation does not validate the caller-supplied length and proceeds to read past the end of the buffer. The out-of-bounds bytes are consumed only as input to an internal hash computation and are not returned to the caller, so no oracle exists to leak their contents to an attacker. The primary observable effect is a possible crash (denial of service) of the verifying process if the read crosses into an unmapped memory page. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.16.0.

Timeline

  1. CVE published
  2. CISA SSVC assessment

    Exploitation: none · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial

  3. Record last updated

Affected versions

  • open-quantum-safe liboqs

    fixed in 0.16.0

References 2

GitHub · open-quantum-safe/liboqs