Out-of-bounds read in PCRE2 - #VU146526
Published: August 31, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU146526
CSH Severity: Low
CVSS v4: 6.3 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]
CVE-ID: N/A
CWE-ID: CWE-125
Exploitation vector: Remote access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vulnerability details
The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to cause a denial of service.
The vulnerability exists due to out-of-bounds read in pcre2_match() interpreter when processing invalid UTF subjects with PCRE2_MATCH_INVALID_UTF during backward character scans. A remote attacker can supply a specially crafted subject string to cause a denial of service.
Only patterns compiled with PCRE2_UTF and PCRE2_MATCH_INVALID_UTF are affected, and exploitation requires an invalid subject beginning with a UTF continuation code unit together with affected backward-walking pattern operations such as \\X or variable-length lookbehind.
Affected software
PCRE2
Remediation
Install security update from vendor's website.
PCRE2 - update to 10.48