Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-34874

Memory Safety in Trustedfirmware Mbed Tls 3.5.0 – 3.6.6

Published
01 April 2026
Modified
05 June 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0028 20th percentile
Risk Priority 56 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-34874 is a high-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Trustedfirmware Mbed Tls. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked at the 20th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary

Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.

CVE-2026-34874 is a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in Mbed TLS versions through 3.6.5 and 4.x through 4.0.0. The flaw occurs during distinguished name parsing, enabling an attacker to trigger a write to address 0. It carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H) and maps to CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference). The vulnerability was published on 2026-04-01T19:16:33.390.

A remote, unauthenticated attacker can exploit this over the network with low attack complexity and no user interaction. Exploitation results in high availability impact with no confidentiality or integrity effects, typically manifesting as a denial-of-service via process crash in applications using the affected Mbed TLS library for X.509 parsing.

The Mbed TLS security advisories provide mitigation guidance, available at https://mbed-tls.readthedocs.io/en/latest/security-advisories/ and specifically at https://mbed-tls.readthedocs.io/en/latest/security-advisories/mbedtls-security-advisory-2026-03-null-pointer-dereference-x509/.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

An issue was discovered in Mbed TLS through 3.6.5 and 4.x through 4.0.0. There is a NULL pointer dereference in distinguished name parsing that allows an attacker to write to address 0.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
T1489 Service Stop Impact
Adversaries may stop or disable services on a system to render those services unavailable to legitimate users.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-28836Same product: Trustedfirmware Mbed Tls
CVE-2024-23744Same product: Trustedfirmware Mbed Tls
CVE-2025-49087Same product: Trustedfirmware Mbed Tls
CVE-2026-34873Same product: Trustedfirmware Mbed Tls
CVE-2025-49600Same product: Trustedfirmware Mbed Tls
CVE-2024-45159Same product: Trustedfirmware Mbed Tls
CVE-2024-28755Same product: Trustedfirmware Mbed Tls
CVE-2026-34876Same product: Trustedfirmware Mbed Tls
CVE-2024-45157Same product: Trustedfirmware Mbed Tls
CVE-2024-45158Same product: Trustedfirmware Mbed Tls

Affected Assets

trustedfirmware
mbed tls
4.0.0 · 3.5.0 — 3.6.6

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation (including static analysis) directly finds null-dereference bugs before deployment.

Documented development standards and tools can enforce null-safety rules and safe pointer usage.

Engineering principles can mandate defensive coding such as explicit null checks before dereference.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices (static analysis, code review, safe coding standards) directly prevent NULL dereference bugs during development.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

finds

Security testing can detect NULL dereference defects before release.

prevents

Secure SDLC mandates defensive coding practices that can prevent NULL dereferences.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify input validation and pointer-safety rules.

prevents

Secure architecture principles encourage defensive design that avoids unsafe pointer use.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly require NULL-pointer checks and safe dereference patterns.

References