CVE-2026-44518CWE-125CWE-20

liboqs: XMSS Buffer Overread Bug

Medium · published May 29, 2026

CVSS v3.1
5.3
EPSS
0%
Percentile
22.0
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
5.3 · MEDIUM
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00305 · 22.0th percentile
Weaknesses
CWE-125 · Out-of-bounds Read; CWE-20 · Improper Input Validation
Published
2026-05-29T18:07Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 29 MAY 18:07Z
    liboqs: XMSS Buffer Overread Bug
    cvelistv5