CVE-2026-46344: open-quantum-safe liboqs · Out-of-bounds Read
Affects open-quantum-safe liboqsSource CVE Database V5
Mentioned vulnerabilities
Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.3 Medium : upgrade to 0.16.0 when convenient.
Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 06:59 UTC
- EPSS
- 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 23% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
- Patch
- Available – fixed in 0.16.0
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:LExploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 29 May 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by 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 29 Oct 2026.
What to do
Upgrade liboqs and open-quantum-safe/liboqs to 0.16.0.
Affected software
| Product | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| open-quantum-safeliboqs | Affected
| Fixed in
|
GitHubopen-quantum-safe/liboqspkg:github/open-quantum-safe/liboqsOther threats | Affected
| Fixed in
|
Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.
AI-suggested
Upgrade liboqs to version 0.16.0 or later, where this vulnerability is fixed. Since the vendor advisory indicates the issue is resolved in 0.16.0, applying this official fix is the recommended remediation. No additional mitigation is required.
Description
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.