CVE-2026-44518
MediumCVSS 5.3Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk23th percentile - higher than 23% of all known CVEs
Summary
In liboqs before 0.16.0, an out-of-bounds read occurs in XMSS/XMSS^MT signature verification when the signature buffer is shorter than expected. The implementation does not validate the length and reads past the buffer, potentially causing a crash (DoS).
Risk Assessment
The organization may experience crashes in post-quantum signature verification processes, disrupting systems relying on these algorithms.
Recommendation
Update liboqs to version 0.16.0 or later, which includes the fix.
Other vulnerabilities in liboqs
Original NVD description (English source)
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.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS