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VulnerabilityPublished

CVE-2026-44519: open-quantum-safe liboqs · Covert Timing Channel

Affects open-quantum-safe liboqsSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.1 Medium : upgrade to 0.16.0 when convenient.

Data as of 6 Nov 2026, 21:34 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score
5.1Medium
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

Thin evidence

One scorer or none
CVSS scores by source
CNA (GitHub_M)CVSS 3.15.1
Patch
Available – fixed in 0.16.0
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 6 Nov 2026

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponized: no evidence on record.

    No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB

  4. Exploited in the wild: no evidence on record.

    Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation

  5. Observed by OffSeq Mirage: no evidence on record.

    No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 6 Nov 2026.

What to do

Upgrade open-quantum-safe liboqs to 0.16.0.

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
open-quantum-safeliboqsAffected
  • <0.16.0
Fixed in
  • 0.16.0

AI-suggested

Upgrade liboqs to version 0.16.0 or later, where this vulnerability is fixed. If upgrading is not immediately possible, avoid compiling affected FrodoKEM variants with Clang 17 or later at optimization levels such as -Os that trigger the issue. Default -O3 builds do not exhibit the vulnerability. No other mitigations are reported.

Description

A covert timing channel vulnerability (CWE-385) exists in the liboqs cryptographic library versions prior to 0.16.0. The issue arises in the ct_select function for FrodoKEM AES and SHAKE variants when compiled with Clang 17 or later at certain optimization levels, allowing secret-dependent cache behavior. This can enable a local attacker to perform cache-timing measurements to aid private key recovery. The vulnerability is fixed in version 0.16.0.

References

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