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OpenAdvisories
Medium · 5.3 CVE-2026-44518 EUVD-2026-33412

liboqs: XMSS Buffer Overread Bug

Published May 29, 2026 · Updated May 29, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

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 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.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
open-quantum-safe liboqs < 0.16.0 —

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.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
SLES 15 SP7 liboqs 0.16.0-150600.3.6.1 SUSE-SU-2026:3420-1
SLES 15 SP7 oqs-provider 0.11.0.32-150600.3.9.1 SUSE-SU-2026:3420-1
SLES 15 SP6 liboqs 0.16.0-150600.3.6.1 SUSE-SU-2026:3420-1
SLES 15 SP6 oqs-provider 0.11.0.32-150600.3.9.1 SUSE-SU-2026:3420-1
Show 3 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
SLES for SAP 16.0 liboqs 0.16.0-160000.1.1 SUSE-SU-2026:23313-1
SLES for SAP 16.0 oqs-provider 0.11.0.32-160000.1.1 SUSE-SU-2026:23313-1
SLES for SAP 15 SP6 liboqs 0.16.0-150600.3.6.1 SUSE-SU-2026:3420-1
SLES for SAP 15 SP6 oqs-provider 0.11.0.32-150600.3.9.1 SUSE-SU-2026:3420-1
SLES 16.0 liboqs 0.16.0-160000.1.1 SUSE-SU-2026:23313-1
SLES 16.0 oqs-provider 0.11.0.32-160000.1.1 SUSE-SU-2026:23313-1
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Leap 16.0 liboqs 0.16.0-160000.1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:21634-1
openSUSE Leap 16.0 oqs-provider 0.11.0.32-160000.1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:21634-1

Advisories 3

References