Vulnerability · Published Mar 27, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2026-33936python-ecdsa: Denial of Service via improper DER length validation in crafted private keys
Medium 5.3
In plain English
A medium-severity improper input validation in python-ecdsa from tlsfuzzer. Proof-of-concept exploit code is public. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.5% (higher than 42% of all known vulnerabilities). Ready-made attack tooling exists: public proof-of-concept code. Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
The `ecdsa` PyPI package is a pure Python implementation of ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography) with support for ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm), EdDSA (Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm) and ECDH (Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman). Prior to version 0.19.2, an issue in the low-level DER parsing functions can cause unexpected exceptions to be raised from the public API functions. `ecdsa.der.remove_octet_string()` accepts truncated DER where the encoded length exceeds the available buffer. For example, an OCTET STRING that declares a length of 4096 bytes but provides only 3 bytes is parsed successfully instead of being rejected. Because of that, a crafted DER input can cause `SigningKey.from_der()` to raise an internal exception (`IndexError: index out of bounds on dimension 1`) rather than cleanly rejecting malformed DER (e.g., raising `UnexpectedDER` or `ValueError`). Applications that parse untrusted DER private keys may crash if they do not handle unexpected exceptions, resulting in a denial of service. Version 0.19.2 patches the issue.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:12 | python-ecdsa | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-33936 |
| Debian:13 | python-ecdsa | 0.19.1-1+deb13u1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-33936 |
| Debian:14 | python-ecdsa | 0.19.2-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-33936 |
| PyPI | ecdsa | 0.19.2 | GHSA-9f5j-8jwj-x28g |
| PyPI | ecdsa | 0.19.2 | PYSEC-2026-2467 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | python-ecdsa | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-33936 |
| Ubuntu:24.04:LTS | python-ecdsa | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-33936 |
| Ubuntu:25.10 | python-ecdsa | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-33936 |
| Ubuntu:26.04:LTS | python-ecdsa | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-33936 |
| Ubuntu:26.10 | python-ecdsa | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-33936 |
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| tlsfuzzer | python-ecdsa | < 0.19.2 |
Weakness: CWE-20, CWE-130 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L