CVE-2026-16560
MediumCVSS 5.3Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk32th percentile - higher than 32% of all known CVEs
Summary
A heap-buffer-overflow flaw was found in Directory Server (389-ds-base). When a DN contains a legacy-quoted value, the server won't close the heap allocation allowing another call to refer to the same memory pointer causing a denial of service or an arbitrary memory write operation.
Risk Assessment
An attacker could crash the server or overwrite arbitrary data in memory, potentially leading to information disclosure or system compromise.
Recommendation
Update 389-ds-base to the latest patched version. If unavailable, restrict server access to trusted networks only.
Other vulnerabilities in 389-ds-base
See all- CVE-2017-7551Critical
389-ds-base versions before 1.3.5.19 and 1.3.6.7 are vulnerable to password brute-force attacks during account lockout due to different return codes returned on password attempts.
- CVE-2026-78701Medium
A flaw was found in 389-ds-base. A remote, authenticated attacker could exploit a vulnerability in the SASL UNBIND process. By sending a specially crafted request, the attacker can cause a connection to stall, leading to resource exhaustion and a Denial of Service (DoS) for the server.
- CVE-2026-18663Medium
A double-free flaw was found in 389-ds-base in the get_ldapmessage_controls_ext() function. An unauthenticated remote attacker can trigger it with a single BIND request carrying a critical Session Tracking control, leading to heap corruption and potential denial of service.
- CVE-2026-14969Medium
A flaw was found in 389-ds-base where the LDBM backend attribute encryption uses a hardcoded static initialization vector for AES-CBC and 3DES-CBC operations, allowing an attacker with privileged filesystem access to detect plaintext equality across encrypted entries by comparing ciphertext blocks.
- CVE-2026-14940Medium
A heap-buffer-overflow vulnerability 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.
- CVE-2026-11610High
A heap buffer overflow flaw was found in the SASL I/O layer of 389 Directory Server (389-ds-base). An authenticated attacker can send a specially crafted oversized LDAP UNBIND packet that overflows a 512-byte heap receive buffer without bounds checking, causing a denial of service (server crash).
- CVE-2026-11774High
An integer overflow flaw was found in the SASL I/O layer of 389 Directory Server (389-ds-base). Adding sizeof(uint32_t) to a crafted SASL packet length prefix of 0xFFFFFFFC causes unsigned wraparound to zero, bypassing the nsslapd-maxsasliosize limit and leading to a heap buffer overflow of up to approximately 2 megabytes of attacker-controlled data.
- CVE-2026-9064High
In 389-ds-base, the get_ldapmessage_controls_ext() function does not enforce an upper bound on the number of controls per LDAP message. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can send a crafted request with hundreds of thousands of minimal controls, causing excessive CPU consumption and heap allocation.
- CVE-2025-14905High
A heap buffer overflow vulnerability was found in the 389-ds-base server in the `schema_attr_enum_callback` function within `schema.c`. The flaw is due to incorrect buffer size calculation that sums alias string lengths without accounting for formatting characters, which can cause a heap overflow when processing many aliases.
- CVE-2025-2487Medium
A flaw in the 389-ds-base LDAP Server occurs when the return value of a function is not checked during a Modify DN operation, leading to a NULL pointer dereference. A privileged user performing a MODDN operation after a failed operation can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) or system crash.
Original NVD description (English source)
A heap-buffer-overflow flaw was found in Directory Server (389-ds-base). When a DN contains a legacy-quoted value, the server won't close the heap allocation allowing another call to refer to the same memory pointer causing a denial of service or an arbitrary memory write operation.

