open-quantum-safe liboqs up to 0.15.x input validation

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability categorized as problematic has been discovered in open-quantum-safe liboqs up to 0.15.x. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown functionality. Executing a manipulation can lead to input validation. This vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2026-44518. The attack can be launched remotely. No exploit exists. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in open-quantum-safe liboqs up to 0.15.x and classified as problematic. This vulnerability affects an unknown functionality. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a input validation vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-20. The product receives input or data, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input has the properties that are required to process the data safely and correctly. As an impact it is known to affect availability. CVE summarizes:

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.

The advisory is shared for download at github.com. This vulnerability was named CVE-2026-44518 since 05/06/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be initiated remotely. No form of authentication is required for a successful exploitation. There are neither technical details nor an exploit publicly available.

Upgrading to version 0.16.0 eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Vendor

• open-quantum-safe

Name

• liboqs

Version

• 0.1
• 0.2
• 0.3
• 0.4
• 0.5
• 0.6
• 0.7
• 0.8
• 0.9
• 0.10
• 0.11
• 0.12
• 0.13
• 0.14
• 0.15

Website

• Product: https://github.com/open-quantum-safe/liboqs/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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