CVE-2026-72852
HighCVSS 7.8Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk4th percentile - higher than 4% of all known CVEs
Summary
hank-ai/darknet has a vulnerability where convolutional layer weight and output heap buffers are sized using unchecked 32-bit integer arithmetic on configuration fields from a .cfg file. A crafted .cfg can cause undersized allocation, leading to heap buffer overflow during forward_convolutional_layer. Loading the crafted .cfg is sufficient, no valid .weights file is required.
Risk Assessment
Processing a malicious .cfg file can lead to heap buffer overflow, potentially causing crashes, data disclosure, or possibly remote code execution.
Recommendation
Upgrade darknet to a patched version and avoid loading .cfg files from untrusted sources.
Other vulnerabilities in darknet
Original NVD description (English source)
hank-ai/darknet sizes a convolutional layer's weight and output heap buffers by multiplying configuration fields taken from a .cfg file in unchecked 32-bit int arithmetic. In src-lib/convolutional_layer.cpp, l.nweights is computed as (c / groups) * n * size * size and l.outputs as l.out_h * l.out_w * l.out_c, and both feed xcalloc directly. A .cfg whose true dimension product exceeds INT_MAX wraps to a small or zero value, so the allocation is undersized; for example width and height of 256 with filters of 65536 gives 2^32, which wraps to 0. forward_convolutional_layer then re-derives the GEMM dimensions with a different operand order, computing k as l.size*l.size*l.c / l.groups where the allocation divided before multiplying, and reads and writes through the undersized buffer. Loading the crafted .cfg for inference or training is sufficient and no valid .weights file is required. The reported proof of concept observed a heap buffer overflow read in gemm_nn_fast under AddressSanitizer and glibc allocator metadata corruption in a release build of the same input, indicating an out-of-bounds write.

