CVE-2026-44035
Description
A flaw was found in DCMTK. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by enticing a user or service to process a specially crafted DICOM directory (DICOMDIR) file containing deeply nested directory records. This issue triggers uncontrolled recursion during record processing, causing stack memory exhaustion that crashes the application and results in a Denial of Service (DoS).
Statement
This vulnerability is rated as Moderate impact because successful exploitation requires local user interaction to process an untrusted DICOMDIR file, limiting the blast radius to a process crash without compromising system integrity or confidentiality. The affected dcmtk package is not included in supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases and is only distributed through community repositories such as Fedora and EPEL. Consequently, default Red Hat enterprise environments are not exposed to this flaw.
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)
When allocating resources without limits, an attacker could prevent other systems, applications, or processes from accessing the same type of resource. It can be easy for an attacker to consume many resources by rapidly making many requests or causing larger resources to be used than is needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
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