VideoLAN VLC Media Player up to 3.0.23 RTSP Access access.c RtspReadLine heap-based overflow

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as problematic, has been found in VideoLAN VLC Media Player up to 3.0.23. Impacted is the function RtspReadLine of the file modules/access/rtsp/access.c of the component RTSP Access. Performing a manipulation results in heap-based overflow. This vulnerability was named CVE-2026-73324. The attack may be initiated remotely. There is no available exploit.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in VideoLAN VLC Media Player up to 3.0.23. It has been classified as problematic. This affects the function RtspReadLine of the file modules/access/rtsp/access.c of the component RTSP Access. 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 confidentiality. The summary by CVE is:

VLC media player copies an RTSP response line into a fixed buffer without guaranteeing termination and then treats that buffer as a C string. RtspReadLine in modules/access/rtsp/access.c calls strncpy with the full buffer length, which writes no terminator when the source line is at least as long as the destination, and rtsp_get in modules/access/rtsp/rtsp.c allocates that buffer as BUF_SIZE bytes and passes it to strdup. When a server returns a line of 4096 bytes or more, strdup measures its length past the end of the allocation and copies adjacent heap bytes until an incidental zero byte. Because the affected line is the Session header, the disclosed bytes are retained as the session identifier and sent back to the server on every subsequent request, so the operator of a hostile server reads heap memory from the client rather than inferring it. The attacker controls the line length and therefore how far the read runs. A single playlist entry naming a realrtsp URL is sufficient. The module is a build-time option, disabled in some distribution packages and enabled in the official VideoLAN builds.

It is possible to read the advisory at github.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-73324 since 08/11/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. No form of authentication is needed for exploitation. It demands that the victim is doing some kind of user interaction. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 09/09/2026).

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

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Productinfo

Type

• Multimedia Player Software

Vendor

• VideoLAN

Name

• VLC Media Player

Version

• 3.0.0
• 3.0.1
• 3.0.2
• 3.0.3
• 3.0.4
• 3.0.5
• 3.0.6
• 3.0.7
• 3.0.8
• 3.0.9
• 3.0.10
• 3.0.11
• 3.0.12
• 3.0.13
• 3.0.14
• 3.0.15
• 3.0.16
• 3.0.17
• 3.0.18
• 3.0.19
• 3.0.20
• 3.0.21
• 3.0.22
• 3.0.23

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.videolan.org/

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