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CVE-2026-44288

protobufjs: Overlong UTF-8 decoding

Published: May 13, 2026Updated: May 19, 2026 Sources: CVE List NVDCWE-176
5.3MEDIUM
NVD MITRE
EPSS Score
0.3%
Top 78.5%
CISA KEV
Not in KEV
Exploits
No Known Exploits
Remediation
Patch Available

Description

protobufjs compiles protobuf definitions into JavaScript (JS) functions. Prior to 7.5.6 and 8.0.2, protobufjs includes a minimal UTF-8 decoder that accepted overlong UTF-8 byte sequences and decoded them to their canonical characters instead of replacing them. An attacker who can provide protobuf binary data decoded through the affected UTF-8 path may be able to bypass application-level checks that inspect raw bytes before protobuf string decoding. For example, bytes that do not contain certain ASCII characters could decode to strings containing those characters. This vulnerability is fixed in 7.5.6 and 8.0.2.

No summary for this CVE yet.

CVSS Vector Breakdown

AV:NAC:LPR:NUI:NS:UC:NI:LA:N
Exploitability
AV:NAttack Vector
Network
AC:LAttack Complexity
Low
PR:NPrivileges Required
None
UI:NUser Interaction
None
Scope
S:UScope
Unchanged
Impact
C:NConfidentiality
None
I:LIntegrity
Low
A:NAvailability
None
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Weaknesses

CWE-176

Affected Products

protobufjsprotobufjs project
Library
OSS Libraries / generic-library
protobuf.jsprotobufjs
Library
OSS Libraries / generic-library
protobufjs projectoss-projectOSS Librariesaka protobufjs, protobufjs-cli
protobufjsoss-projectOSS Librariesaka protobuf.js, protobufjs

Exploitability

Official Patch Available

References

https://github.com/protobufjs/protobuf.js/security/advisories/GHSA-q6x5-8v7m-xcrf
github.com

Timeline

Published
May 13, 2026
Last Updated
May 19, 2026

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