Log in Start free

Vulnerability · Published Oct 8, 2026 · Assigned by securin

CVE-2026-44038Global buffer out-of-bounds read in DCMTK JPEG Huffman decoding

Medium 4.4

In plain English

A medium-severity out-of-bounds read 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 0.1% (higher than 1% of all known vulnerabilities).

Severity (CVSS 3.1)4.4Medium
Exploit odds (30 days)0.1%top 98.9% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

A global out-of-bounds read in the Huffman decoder of the bundled IJG JPEG libraries (dcmjpeg/libijg8, libijg12 and libijg16) of OFFIS DCMTK 3.7.0 allows an attacker to read memory beyond the extend_test[] and extend_offset[] tables, causing incorrectly decoded pixel data or a crash, via a DICOM file with a crafted JPEG stream whose Huffman table defines a difference category above 15. Huffman symbol values are not range-checked unless DCMTK is built with DCMTK_ENABLE_STRICT_HUFFMAN_TABLE_CHECK, which is disabled by default. dcmdjpeg and any application that decompresses JPEG DICOM images with DCMTK are affected. The issue is fixed in commit d6ae1bc8d5b9ae9c7300013c8c85cc2ea0fd8cf5.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian:12dcmtkno fix listedDEBIAN-CVE-2026-44038
Debian:13dcmtkno fix listedDEBIAN-CVE-2026-44038
Debian:14dcmtkno fix listedDEBIAN-CVE-2026-44038
Ubuntu:26.04:LTSdcmtkno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2026-44038
Ubuntu:26.10dcmtkno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2026-44038

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
OFFIS DCMTK 3.7.0

Weakness: CWE-125 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:L

References