CVE-2026-41989
Memory Safety in Gnupg Libgcrypt 1.8.8 – 1.10.4
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2026-41989 is a medium-severity Out-of-bounds Write (CWE-787) vulnerability in Gnupg Libgcrypt. Its CVSS base score is 6.7 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Security Account Manager (T1003.002); ranked at the 8th 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-2026-41989 is a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability (CWE-787) affecting Libgcrypt versions before 1.12.2. The flaw occurs when the gcry_pk_decrypt function processes crafted ECDH ciphertext, potentially leading to a denial of service. Published on 2026-04-23, it carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 6.7 (AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H), highlighting medium severity with impacts primarily on integrity and availability.
Exploitation requires local access (AV:L) and high attack complexity (AC:H), but no privileges (PR:N), user interaction (UI:N), or scope change (S:U). An unprivileged local attacker could supply malformed ECDH ciphertext to trigger the buffer overflow in gcry_pk_decrypt, achieving high integrity violation (I:H)—such as memory corruption—and high availability disruption (A:H), like application crashes or denial of service, with no confidentiality impact (C:N).
Advisories recommend upgrading to Libgcrypt 1.12.2, which addresses the issue. Detailed information is available in the GnuPG development ticket at https://dev.gnupg.org/T8211, the GnuPG announce mailing list post at https://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gnupg-announce/2026q2/000503.html, and the OSS-Security mailing list discussion at https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/04/21/1.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-25192
Vulnerability Data
Libgcrypt before 1.12.2 sometimes allows a heap-based buffer overflow and denial of service via crafted ECDH ciphertext to gcry_pk_decrypt.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation (including fuzzing and bounds checks) finds out-of-bounds write flaws before deployment.
Requiring documented secure-development standards and tools can mandate bounds-checked coding practices that avoid the weakness.
Input validation can structurally reject or sanitize data that would otherwise trigger an out-of-bounds write.
Memory-protection mechanisms limit the exploitability and blast radius of a successful out-of-bounds write.
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.
Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover out-of-bounds write flaws so they can be remediated.
Patching or replacing vulnerable software directly eliminates known instances of this coding weakness.
Secure-development practices (static analysis, bounds checking, code review) are the primary means of preventing out-of-bounds writes.
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.