Red Hat 389 Directory Server DN Normalization heap-based overflow

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as problematic has been found in Red Hat 389 Directory Server. Affected by this issue is some unknown functionality of the component DN Normalization. Performing a manipulation results in heap-based overflow. This vulnerability is identified as CVE-2026-14940. The attack can be initiated remotely. There is not any exploit available.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as problematic has been found in Red Hat 389 Directory Server (version now known). This affects some unknown processing of the component DN Normalization. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a heap-based overflow vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-122. A heap overflow condition is a buffer overflow, where the buffer that can be overwritten is allocated in the heap portion of memory, generally meaning that the buffer was allocated using a routine such as malloc(). This is going to have an impact on availability. The summary by CVE is:

A heap-buffer-overflow flaw was found in 389 Directory Server (389-ds-base). When normalizing a Distinguished Name (DN) that contains a legacy-quoted value encoding a multivalued nested Relative Distinguished Name (RDN), the server can write past the end of a heap allocation while sorting RDN attribute-value pairs. An unauthenticated remote attacker can trigger this condition by sending an LDAP operation whose DN reaches the DN normalization routine, such as a search with a crafted base DN. This can corrupt heap memory and may cause denial of service.

The advisory is shared at access.redhat.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-14940 since 07/07/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. No form of authentication is needed for exploitation. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 07/07/2026).

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Directory Service Software

Vendor

• Red Hat

Name

• 389 Directory Server

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.redhat.com/

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Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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