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CVE Record

CVE-2026-33846: Gnutls: gnutls: denial of service via heap buffer overflow in dtls handshake fragment reassembly

A heap buffer overflow vulnerability exists in the DTLS handshake fragment reassembly logic of GnuTLS. The issue arises in merge_handshake_packet() where incoming handshake fragments are matched and merged based solely on handshake type, without validating that the message_length field remains consistent across all fragments of the same logical message. An attacker can exploit this by sending crafted DTLS fragments with conflicting message_length values, causing the implementation to allocate a buffer based on a smaller initial fragment and subsequently write beyond its bounds using larger, inconsistent fragments. Because the merge operation does not enforce proper bounds checking against the allocated buffer size, this results in an out-of-bounds write on the heap. The vulnerability is remotely exploitable without authentication via the DTLS handshake path and can lead to application crashes or potential memory corruption.

HighCVSS 7.5Not KEV-listedUpdated
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Glexia's TakeAutomated analysishigh

Security readout for executives and security teams

Plain-English summary

This is a remotely reachable crash risk in GnuTLS when DTLS is used. A malformed handshake fragment sequence can corrupt heap memory during reassembly. The documented impact is loss of availability, with possible memory corruption, but the supplied sources do not show confirmed active exploitation.

Executive priority

Treat as high priority for externally exposed DTLS services because exploitation needs no authentication and can cause outages. Internal-only systems or hosts without DTLS exposure are lower urgency but should still be patched through normal security maintenance.

Technical view

The flaw is in merge_handshake_packet() DTLS handshake fragment reassembly. Fragments are merged by handshake type without enforcing consistent message_length across the logical message, allowing allocation from a smaller fragment followed by an out-of-bounds heap write from larger inconsistent fragments.

Likely exposure

Exposure is most likely on affected Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems running services that use GnuTLS for DTLS handshakes. Installed vulnerable packages alone may not mean reachable exposure unless a DTLS-using application is listening.

Exploitation context

The source bundle describes remote, unauthenticated exploitation through the DTLS handshake path. KEV is false, and no supplied source confirms exploitation in the wild. The practical documented outcome is denial of service; memory corruption is possible but not further characterized.

Researcher notes

Focus validation on DTLS reachability and package provenance. The bundle names CWE-130, CVSS 7.5, and Red Hat affected streams across RHEL 7 ELS, 8 variants, 9 variants, and 10 variants. Do not infer TLS-over-TCP impact from this evidence alone.

Mitigation direction

  • Apply the relevant Red Hat security advisory updates for affected RHEL streams.
  • Prioritize internet-facing or partner-facing DTLS services using GnuTLS.
  • Restart or redeploy services after package updates are applied.
  • Limit network access to DTLS endpoints where business requirements allow.
  • Track Red Hat guidance for fixed package versions and product-specific handling.

Validation and detection

  • Inventory RHEL hosts with affected gnutls or listed libtasn1 package versions.
  • Map which applications on those hosts accept DTLS traffic.
  • Check whether exposed DTLS services link against GnuTLS.
  • Confirm applicable RHSA updates are installed on affected systems.
  • Review logs for unexplained crashes in DTLS-enabled services.
Prepared
Confidence
high
Sources
11

Public sources used

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Potential ATT&CK relevance

Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context

These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.

ATT&CK lookup starting points

Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.

cwe · low confidence lookup

CWE-130: Exact CWE lookup

Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.

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description · low confidence lookup

Container behavior lookup

The affected technology mentions containers, so container-specific ATT&CK technique review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.

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cve · low confidence lookup

CVE-2026-33846 mapping review

Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.

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Vulnerability profileCVE Program record
Severity
High
CVSS
7.5 (3.1)
Known Exploited
No
Published

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Official CVE source material

CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5

These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.

2CVSS vectors
7Timeline events
2ADP providers
21Source links

SSVC decision data

CISA-ADPCISA Coordinator
Timestamp
Version
2.0.3
Exploitation: noneAutomatable: yesTechnical Impact: partial

CVSS vector scores

2 official scores

We collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.

ScoreVersionSeverityVectorExploitImpactSource
7.5CVSS 3.1HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H3.93.6redhat
7.5CVSS 3.1HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H3.93.6redhat-SADP

Vulnerability scoring details

Base CVSS 3.1 score

7.5High
CVSS 3.1 vector shape for CVE-2026-33846Attack VectorAttack ComplexityPrivileges RequiredUser InteractionScopeConfidentiality ImpactIntegrity ImpactAvailability Impact

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector
NetworkAdjacentLocalPhysical
Attack Complexity
LowHigh
Privileges Required
NoneLowHigh
User Interaction
NoneRequired
Scope
ChangedUnchanged
Confidentiality Impact
HighLowNone
Integrity Impact
HighLowNone
Availability Impact
HighLowNone

Vulnerability timeline

Timeline events are normalized from CVE metadata, CNA source timelines, ADP timelines, and KEV metadata when present.

  1. CVE reservedCVE Program

    The CVE ID was reserved by the assigning CNA.

  2. ADP timelineredhat-SADP

    Reported to Red Hat.

  3. Source timelineredhat

    Reported to Red Hat.

  4. ADP timelineredhat-SADP

    Made public.

  5. Source timelineredhat

    Made public.

  6. CVE publishedCVE Program

    The CVE record was published.

  7. CVE updatedCVE Program

    The CVE record metadata indicates this as the latest update time.

ADP provider summaries

CISA-ADPCISA ADP Vulnrichment
other:ssvc
redhat-SADPgnutls: GnuTLS: Denial of Service via heap buffer overflow in DTLS handshake fragment reassembly
other:Red Hat severity ratingcvssV3_1
  • 2026-03-24T05:38:09.899Z: Reported to Red Hat.
  • 2026-05-04T08:53:59.249Z: Made public.

Source materials

Affected products

Products and packages named in the record

VendorProductVersion / packageStatus
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 10gnutls, 0:3.8.10-4.el10_2affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0 Extended Update Supportgnutls, 0:3.8.9-9.el10_0.19affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extended Lifecycle Supportgnutls, 0:3.3.29-9.el7_9.1affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8gnutls, 0:3.6.16-8.el8_10.6affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8gnutls, 0:3.6.16-8.el8_10.6affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Advanced Mission Critical Update Supportgnutls, 0:3.6.14-10.el8_4.1affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Advanced Mission Critical Update Supportlibtasn1, 0:4.13-3.el8_4.1affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Extended Update Support Long-Life Add-Ongnutls, 0:3.6.14-10.el8_4.1affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Extended Update Support Long-Life Add-Onlibtasn1, 0:4.13-3.el8_4.1affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Advanced Mission Critical Update Supportgnutls, 0:3.6.16-5.el8_6.5affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Advanced Mission Critical Update Supportlibtasn1, 0:4.13-3.el8_6.2affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Extended Update Support Long-Life Add-Ongnutls, 0:3.6.16-5.el8_6.5affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Extended Update Support Long-Life Add-Onlibtasn1, 0:4.13-3.el8_6.2affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 Telecommunications Update Servicegnutls, 0:3.6.16-7.el8_8.4affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 Telecommunications Update Servicelibtasn1, 0:4.13-4.el8_8.1affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 Update Services for SAP Solutionsgnutls, 0:3.6.16-7.el8_8.4affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 Update Services for SAP Solutionslibtasn1, 0:4.13-4.el8_8.1affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 9gnutls, 0:3.8.10-4.el9_8affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 9gnutls, 0:3.8.10-4.el9_8affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 Update Services for SAP Solutionsgnutls, 0:3.7.6-21.el9_2.7affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 Update Services for SAP Solutionsgnutls, 0:3.8.3-4.el9_4.6affected
Red HatRed Hat Enterprise Linux 9.6 Extended Update Supportgnutls, 0:3.8.3-6.el9_6.4affected
Red HatRed Hat AI Inference Server 3.2rhaiis/model-opt-cuda-rhel9, 1782951051affected
Red HatRed Hat AI Inference Server 3.2rhaiis/vllm-cuda-rhel9, 1782951012affected
Red HatRed Hat AI Inference Server 3.2rhaiis/vllm-rocm-rhel9, 1782951244affected
Red HatRed Hat Discovery 2discovery/discovery-server-rhel9, 1782159791affected
Red HatRed Hat Discovery 2discovery/discovery-ui-rhel9, 1782166952affected
Red HatRed Hat Hardened Imagesgnutls-main, 3.8.13-1.hum1affected
Red HatRed Hat Update Infrastructure 5rhui5/cds-rhel9, 1781525684affected
Red HatRed Hat Update Infrastructure 5rhui5/haproxy-rhel9, 1781525671affected
Weakness

CWE details

CWE-130

CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.

CWE-130 · source CWE mapping

Improper Handling of Length Parameter Inconsistency

Improper Handling of Length Parameter Inconsistency represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.

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