CVE-2026-9499Out-of-bounds read in QTextCodec::codecForName() in Qt

Official description

An out-of-bounds read (buffer over-read) vulnerability exists in QTextCodec::codecForName() in Qt. When the function is called with a QByteArray that is not NUL-terminated (for example, one created with QByteArray::fromRawData()), the codec-name matching routine reads past the end of the supplied buffer. In most cases this results in an incorrect text codec being selected; in the worst case, if the over-read reaches unmapped memory, the process crashes (denial of service). The over-read is bounded by the length of the longest codec-name candidate, and the out-of-bounds bytes are only compared internally against Qt's fixed list of codec names, so no data is disclosed to an attacker. Applications that do not pass non-NUL-terminated QByteArrays to QTextCodec::codecForName() are not exposed. The affected code resides in the Qt5Compat module from Qt 6.0.0 onward, and in Qt Core (qtbase) in Qt 4.x and Qt 5.x.

Affected packages & fixed versions

Affected products (as reported)

References

• Fix (dev, released in Qt 6.12.0) patch
• Fix (6.11 branch, released in Qt 6.11.1) patch
• Fix (6.10 branch) patch
• Fix (6.8 LTS branch, released in Qt 6.8.8) patch