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CVE-2026-72854

msgpack-c Integer Overflow in msgpack_unpacker_expand_buffer Causes a False-Success Undersized Reservation

Published
Last modified
published
Not listed in CISA KEV
None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
  • Exploitation: poc
  • Automatable: no
  • Technical impact: partial

Summary

msgpack_unpacker_expand_buffer in src/unpack.c, reached through the public msgpack_unpacker_reserve_buffer API, computes its new buffer size using an unchecked size_t addition of the requested size and the amount already used. The doubling loop guards its own multiplication against overflow, but the addition in the loop condition is unguarded, so a request near SIZE_MAX wraps: the loop condition is already satisfied, the allocation is performed at the small pre-wrap size, and the function returns true. The caller is told the requested capacity was reserved when it was not, so a subsequent write of the requested length overflows the heap buffer. The library's own example/lib_buffer_unpack.c demonstrates the reserve-then-write pattern, and its defensive assert comparing capacity against the request is compiled out under NDEBUG. msgpack-c's own decode entry points do not derive the reservation size from untrusted input, so reaching this requires an integration that passes an attacker-influenced length to the reservation API, such as a length-prefixed streaming transport.

Timeline

  1. CVE published
  2. CISA SSVC assessment

    Exploitation: poc · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial

  3. Record last updated

Affected versions

  • msgpack msgpack-c

    through 7.0.1

References 6

GitHub · msgpack/msgpack-c

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