CVE Catalog

CVE-2026-120754

LowCVSS 3.3
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.15%

4th percentile - higher than 4% of all known CVEs

Summary

HDF5 through 2.2.0 contains an uninitialized memory read vulnerability in H5Z__filter_scaleoffset() in src/H5Zscaleoffset.c. The decode path validates reads against the allocated size of the chunk buffer rather than the number of bytes actually read from the file, so a truncated chunk passes bounds checks and is decompressed from the uninitialized remainder of the allocation, returning unrelated heap contents as dataset data. The issue is not detected by AddressSanitizer because reads remain within the allocation, and it exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2026-19029.

Risk Assessment

Reading a crafted HDF5 file can disclose fragments of process memory (data from other datasets or structures) in the returned data. The risk affects applications processing untrusted HDF5 files and can lead to information leakage.

Recommendation

Upgrade HDF5 to a version containing the complete fix for CVE-2026-19029 and restrict processing of untrusted files. Consider validating HDF5 file integrity before reading.

Other vulnerabilities in HDF5

See all
Original NVD description (English source)

HDF5 through 2.2.0 contains an uninitialized memory read vulnerability in H5Z__filter_scaleoffset() in src/H5Zscaleoffset.c. The decode path validates reads against the allocated size of the chunk buffer rather than the number of bytes actually read from the file. Because H5D__chunk_lock() deliberately sizes filtered chunk buffers to the larger of the stored and unfiltered chunk sizes and fills only the stored bytes, a truncated chunk passes these bounds checks and is decompressed from the uninitialized remainder of the allocation. Unrelated heap contents are then returned to the caller as dataset data. Because the reads remain within the allocation, the issue is not detected by AddressSanitizer. An attacker who can get a user or application to read a dataset from a crafted HDF5 file can cause disclosure of process memory. This issue exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2026-19029.

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS