CVE-2026-18649
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Summary
A flaw was found in the GStreamer gst-plugins-good package. The rtph264depay and rtph265depay RTP depayloader elements do not enforce a maximum size limit on the reassembly buffer used during fragmented RTP packet processing. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can send a continuous stream of RTP fragments without ever transmitting an end-of-fragment marker, causing the reassembly buffer to grow without bound until process memory is exhausted. This results in a denial of service through process termination.
Affected Software
| Vendor | Product | Version Range | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | 0:1.26.7-2.el10_2.3 < * | unaffected |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0 Extended Update Support | 0:1.24.11-1.el10_0.4 < * | unaffected |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | 0:1.16.1-7.el8_10.3 < * | unaffected |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | 0:1.22.12-7.el9_8.2 < * | unaffected |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 Update Services for SAP Solutions | 0:1.18.4-8.el9_2.2 < * | unaffected |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 Update Services for SAP Solutions | 0:1.22.1-4.el9_4.2 < * | unaffected |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.6 Extended Update Support | 0:1.22.12-5.el9_6.2 < * | unaffected |
Weaknesses
- CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
Workarounds
The following mitigations can reduce risk before a patch is available:
Use SRTP or DTLS-SRTP: Deploy the srtpdec element in the pipeline before the depayloader. SRTP provides per-packet authentication and will reject unauthenticated fragments before they reach rtph264depay/rtph265depay, completely preventing exploitation.
Network-level restriction: Use firewall rules (iptables/nftables) to restrict which sources can send RTP traffic to the GStreamer process. Allow RTP only from trusted, authenticated peers.
Build-time exclusion: Disable the entire RTP plugin by configuring with "-Drtp=disabled" in meson build options. This removes all RTP functionality including the vulnerable depayloaders.
Runtime element exclusion: Prevent the affected elements from being auto-plugged by setting GST_PLUGIN_FEATURE_RANK=rtph264depay:0,rtph265depay:0. This prevents automatic selection but not explicit pipeline construction.
ADP Enrichment
CISA ADP Vulnrichment
- SSVC:
- Exploitation: none
- Automatable: yes
- Technical Impact: partial
References
- https://0xsemizzz.vercel.app/projects/cve-2026-18649-gstreamer-rtp-dos/
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:53451
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:53452
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:56966
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:61588
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:61943
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:65959
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:65999
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-18649
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2510614
- https://github.com/0xSemizzz/CVE-2026-18649
- https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer-security/-/merge_requests/113
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