Out-of-Bounds Read in liboqs (CVE-2026-46344)
Summary
Vulnerability in liboqs (CVE-2026-46344). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 0.16.0 or later.
Original description
The description as published by the 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 correctly-sized signature buffer for the declared algorithm but a public key whose OID bytes (pk[0..3]) reference a different XMSS parameter set with a larger sig_bytes, the implementation re-parses the OID from the public key inside xmss_sign_open / xmssmt_sign_open and uses the resulting (larger) sig_bytes to index the caller-supplied signature buffer. As with CVE-2026-44518, 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.
Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database NVD
Auto-generated summary
Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.
A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-46344 has been found in liboqs.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. CVSS score: 5.3/10.
What to do: upgrade liboqs to 0.16.0 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "liboqs CVE-2026-46344" on the vendor's site.
CVE-2026-46344 (liboqs) — CWE-125 / CVSS v3 5.3
Attack vector: remote (network-reachable) / unauthenticated / no user interaction
Patched: 0.16.0 — apply immediately
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.
Out-of-bounds read (CWE-125) exists in liboqs.
Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of liboqs.
Severity: Medium (CVSS 5.3/10). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
Update to 0.16.0.
Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.
Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'liboqs' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.
Response actions
Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order
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1Identify exposure identify
grep -r 'liboqs' . | grep -v node_modulesリポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で
liboqsを grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。 -
2Apply patch patch
Upgrade liboqs to 0.16.0ステージング環境で 0.16.0 に上げて回帰テスト → 本番反映。回帰テストはアプリの主要ハッピーパスを含めること。
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3Post-deployment verification verify
Confirm patched version is live in productionパッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。