Use-after-free in Snort - CVE-2026-20026

 

Use-after-free in Snort - CVE-2026-20026

Published: January 7, 2026 / Updated: January 29, 2026


Vulnerability identifier: #VU121069
CSH Severity: Medium
CVSS v4: 8.7 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]
CVE-ID: CVE-2026-20026
CWE-ID: CWE-416
Exploitation vector: Remote access
Exploit availability: No public exploit available

Vulnerability details

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to perform a denial of service attack.

The vulnerability exists due to a use-after-free error when processing DCE/RPC requests. A remote non-authenticated attacker can send a large number of DCE/RPC requests through an established connection that is inspected by Snort, trigger a use-after-free read and perform a denial of service attack against the Snort 3 Detection Engine.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerability may allow an attacker to compromise vulnerable system.


Affected software

Snort
Cisco Firewall Threat Defense (FTD)
Cisco IOS XE

How to mitigate CVE-2026-20026

Install updates from vendor's website.

Snort - update to 3.9.6.0
Cisco Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) - addressed in versions 7.0.8.2-2, 7.2.10.3-1
Cisco IOS XE - update to 26.1.1

External References

Related Security Bulletins