CVE-2026-120689
Received
Received - Intake
Uncontrolled Recursion in HDF5 Library
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-120689, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-11-02
Last updated on: 2026-11-02
Assigner: HDFG
Description
Description
HDF5 through 2.2.0 contains an uncontrolled recursion vulnerability in H5B__iterate_helper() in src/H5B.c. When iterating a version 1 B-tree, the function does not verify that a child node’s level matches the expected level. That check is performed only in H5B__cache_deserialize() when a node is first loaded into the metadata cache. A crafted HDF5 file whose B-tree child pointer refers back to a node already in the cache, such as a node that points to itself, bypasses the check and causes unbounded recursion, leading to stack exhaustion and a crash. This can be triggered by calling H5Gget_info() or H5Gget_num_objs() on a group in the crafted file, which reaches H5B_iterate() through H5G__obj_info() and H5G__stab_count(). An attacker who can get a user or application to open a malicious file can cause a denial of service.
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
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Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| The HDF Group | HDF5 | <2.3.0 |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
KEV
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-674 | The product does not properly control the amount of recursion that takes place, consuming excessive resources, such as allocated memory or the program stack. |
