CVE-2026-43506
Prosody ≤ 0.12.6
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:LSummary
CVE-2026-43506 is a medium-severity Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime (CWE-401) vulnerability in Prosody Prosody. Its CVSS base score is 5.3 (Medium).
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-2026-43506 is a memory leak vulnerability in Prosody, an open-source XMPP server, affecting versions prior to 0.12.6 as well as versions 1.0.0 through 13.0.0 before 13.0.5. The flaw, classified under CWE-401 (Memory Leak), enables denial of service through memory exhaustion triggered by unauthenticated connections. It received a CVSS v3.1 base score of 5.3 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L), indicating medium severity with low availability impact.
Any unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability over the network with low attack complexity and no user interaction or privileges required. By repeatedly establishing unauthenticated connections, the attacker causes progressive memory leaks, eventually exhausting server resources and disrupting service availability for legitimate users.
The official Prosody security advisory (https://prosody.im/security/advisory_735dd9d3/) and the OSS-Security mailing list announcement (https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/05/01/5) recommend upgrading to Prosody 0.12.6 or 13.0.5, which resolve the memory leak issue in handling unauthenticated connections. No additional workarounds are specified in the provided references.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-26659
Vulnerability Data
An issue was discovered in Prosody before 0.12.6 and 1.0.0 through 13.0.0 before 13.0.5. A Denial of Service can occur via memory exhaustion caused by memory leaks from unauthenticated connections.
- 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 (static analysis, fuzzing, or runtime leak detection) directly finds missing deallocation.
Requiring documented development standards and tools can mandate memory-management disciplines that avoid leaks at introduction.
Engineering principles applied during development can require explicit resource-release patterns that stop memory leaks from being coded.
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.
Secure SDLC practices directly enforce proper memory allocation/deallocation via coding standards, reviews, and tooling.
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.
Security testing in development can detect unreleased memory, providing partial coverage of the weakness.
Secure development life cycle mandates memory-management practices that reduce missing-release defects.
Application security requirements can specify explicit memory-release rules, partially mitigating the weakness.
Secure system architecture and engineering principles include resource-management guidelines that address memory leaks.
Secure coding standards directly require proper allocation/deallocation, covering most of this weakness.
Capacity management may detect memory exhaustion symptoms but does not prevent the coding flaw.