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Vulnerability · Published Oct 8, 2026 · Assigned by securin

CVE-2026-44031Uncontrolled recursion in the DCMTK DICOM dataset parser allows unauthenticated remote denial of service

High 7.5

In plain English

A high-severity security flaw in DCMTK from OFFIS. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.4% (higher than 33% of all known vulnerabilities).

Severity (CVSS 3.1)7.5High
Exploit odds (30 days)0.4%top 66.5% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official 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 packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian:12dcmtkno fix listedDEBIAN-CVE-2026-44031
Debian:13dcmtkno fix listedDEBIAN-CVE-2026-44031
Debian:14dcmtkno fix listedDEBIAN-CVE-2026-44031
Ubuntu:26.04:LTSdcmtkno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2026-44031
Ubuntu:26.10dcmtkno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2026-44031

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
OFFIS DCMTK 3.7.0

Weakness: CWE-674 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

References