Description
Uncontrolled recursion in DcmSequenceOfItems::read() and DcmItem::read() in the dcmdata library of OFFIS DCMTK 3.7.0 allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to cause a denial of service (stack exhaustion and process crash) via a DICOM dataset containing deeply nested sequences (SQ elements). The dataset can be sent in a C-STORE request to storescp, dcmrecv, dcmqrscp, or any other DICOM service built on DCMTK, because the received dataset is parsed before any authentication takes place. Local tools such as dcmdump also crash when opening such a file. The issue is fixed in commit 885ff0f10372bd589b5f44cea974f28a3964cb0f, which adds a configurable sequence nesting depth limit (default 64).
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| OFFIS | DCMTK | 3.7.0 | — |
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | dcmtk | No fix yet | — |
| Debian 13 | dcmtk | No fix yet | — |
| Debian 12 | dcmtk | No fix yet | — |
Ubuntu
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 26.10 | dcmtk | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 26.04 LTS | dcmtk | No fix yet | — |
Show 5 more (older releases, extended support, other products)Fewer releases
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS | dcmtk | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu Pro 22.04 LTS | dcmtk | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS | dcmtk | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS | dcmtk | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS | dcmtk | No fix yet | — |
References
- DCMTK issue #1191 issue-tracking vendor-advisory
- Fix commit patch