Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-40356

Memory Safety in Mit Kerberos 5 1.18.0 – 1.22.2

Public PoCMemory Safety
Published
28 April 2026
Modified
08 July 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.9
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0060 46th percentile
Risk Priority 47 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2026-40356 is a medium-severity Wrap or Wraparound (CWE-191) vulnerability in Mit Kerberos 5. Its CVSS base score is 5.9 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 46th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

In MIT Kerberos 5 (aka krb5) before 1.22.3, there is an integer underflow and resultant out-of-bounds read if an application calls gss_accept_sec_context() on a system with a NegoEx mechanism registered in /etc/gss/mech. An unauthenticated remote attacker can trigger this, possibly…

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causing the process to terminate in parse_message.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network.
T1212 Exploitation for Credential Access Credential Access
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to collect credentials.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-39975Same product: Mit Kerberos 5
CVE-2024-37370Same product: Mit Kerberos 5
CVE-2026-40355Same product: Mit Kerberos 5
CVE-2024-37371Same product: Mit Kerberos 5
CVE-2025-61911Same product class: directory / identity
CVE-2025-61912Same product class: directory / identity
CVE-2026-48919Same product class: directory / identity
CVE-2026-69836Same product class: directory / identity
CVE-2026-50652Same product class: directory / identity
CVE-2026-48917Same product class: directory / identity

Affected Assets

mit
kerberos 5
1.18.0 — 1.22.2

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and static/dynamic analysis directly find integer underflow defects before code is released.

Security engineering principles require use of safe arithmetic constructs or language features that structurally eliminate integer underflow during subtraction.

Input validation can reject or sanitize values that would cause a subtraction to underflow the representable range.

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 full match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly prevent integer underflow defects via input validation, bounds checking, and static analysis.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability scanning and code analysis can surface underflow flaws after they are introduced.

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Routine patching can remediate known underflow bugs once they are discovered in deployed software.

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 in development catches integer underflow defects before release.

prevents

Secure development lifecycle mandates input validation and arithmetic checks that prevent integer underflow.

prevents

Application security requirements include bounds checking and safe arithmetic to avoid underflow conditions.

prevents

Secure architecture principles require defensive coding patterns that mitigate integer wraparound risks.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly prescribe safe integer handling and overflow/underflow prevention.

References