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OpenAdvisories
Medium · 4.3 CVE-2026-49337 EUVD-2026-38078

libde265 has an unbounded memory leak via orphaned slice headers in `read_slice_NAL`

Published Jun 19, 2026 · Updated Jun 22, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

libde265 is an open source implementation of the h.265 video codec. Prior to version 1.0.20, a crafted sequence of H.265 NAL units causes `decoder_context::read_slice_NAL()` (`libde265/decctx.cc:481`) to attach slice headers to a finished picture object
that has no active image unit, resulting in attacker-controlled unbounded heap growth. The retained headers are never freed until the picture is released, which may not happen during continuous streaming. Version 1.0.20 patches the issue.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
strukturag libde265 < 1.0.20 —

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
Debian 14 libde265 1.1.1-1 —
Debian 13 libde265 1.0.15-1+deb13u1 —
Debian 12 libde265 1.0.11-1+deb12u3 —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 25.10 libde265 No fix yet —
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS libde265 1.0.15-1ubuntu0.1 USN-8573-1
Show 5 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu Pro 26.04 LTS libde265 1.0.16-1ubuntu0.1~esm1 USN-8573-1
Ubuntu Pro 22.04 LTS libde265 1.0.8-1ubuntu0.3+esm2 USN-8573-1
Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS libde265 1.0.4-1ubuntu0.4+esm2 USN-8573-1
Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS libde265 1.0.2-2ubuntu0.18.04.1~esm6 USN-8573-1
Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS libde265 1.0.2-2ubuntu0.16.04.1~esm6 USN-8573-1
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Alpine v3.24 libde265 1.1.3-r0 —

Amazon Linux

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Amazon Linux 2023 libde265 +1 1.0.18-1.amzn2023.0.2 ALAS2023-2026-1918

Advisories 2

References