CVE-2026-49315 in HarmonyOS
Summary
by MITRE • 09/09/2026
DoS vulnerability in the input device module. Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect availability.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/09/2026
The identified security issue resides within the input device management subsystem, presenting a significant risk to system stability and operational continuity through denial of service conditions. This class of vulnerabilities typically stems from improper validation or handling of data received from peripheral interfaces such as keyboards, mice, touchscreens, or specialized industrial controllers. When an attacker can interact with these inputs, either directly via physical access or indirectly through compromised drivers and associated software layers, they may trigger unhandled exceptions, infinite loops, or resource exhaustion states within the operating system kernel or application logic responsible for processing input events. The core technical flaw often involves a lack of robust boundary checks on buffer sizes, insufficient sanitization of special characters that might confuse parsers, or failure to implement rate limiting mechanisms that prevent rapid-fire event injection from overwhelming the processing queue.
From an operational perspective, the primary impact is a degradation or complete loss of availability for systems relying on these input devices. In desktop environments, this may manifest as system freezes requiring hard resets, while in server or embedded contexts where physical interaction is limited but remote management interfaces exist, it could lead to unresponsive administrative consoles. For critical infrastructure or industrial control systems that utilize specialized input hardware, such a vulnerability can halt production lines or disable safety monitoring mechanisms if the input module failure cascades into broader system instability. The severity of this impact depends heavily on the context in which the vulnerable component operates; however, any compromise to availability is considered high priority due to its direct effect on business continuity and user trust.
This vulnerability aligns with Common Weakness Enumeration category CWE-400, which covers uncontrolled resource consumption leading to denial of service, as well as potentially CWE-20 if the issue involves improper input validation that allows malformed data to disrupt processing flows. In terms of adversary tactics, this falls under MITRE ATT&CK technique T1499, Endpoint Denial of Service, where attackers aim to exhaust system resources or crash services rather than exfiltrate data or gain persistent access. The exploitation vector is generally classified as local unless the input device is network-connected and managed remotely, in which case it could be considered remote with low complexity if authentication is not required for basic input events.
Mitigation strategies should focus on both immediate patching and long-term architectural improvements. Organizations must apply vendor-provided security updates that address the specific handling logic within the input driver or kernel module. Beyond patches, implementing strict rate limiting policies can mitigate rapid event injection attacks by throttling the frequency of processed inputs from untrusted sources. Additionally, deploying intrusion detection systems capable of identifying anomalous patterns in system resource usage may help detect exploitation attempts before they cause significant disruption. For high-security environments, restricting physical access to input ports and enforcing multi-factor authentication for administrative interfaces can reduce the attack surface available to potential adversaries seeking to exploit this availability flaw.