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Fencer Intel
medium 4.3

CVE-2026-120689 json

Uncontrolled Recursion in HDF5 H5B__iterate_helper() via Crafted File

published 7d ago modified 6d ago also EUVD-2026-115545

cvss
4.3
version 4.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 7%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

HDF5 through 2.2.0 contains an uncontrolled recursion vulnerability in H5B__iterate_helper() in src/H5B.c. When iterating a version 1 B-tree, the function does not verify that a child node’s level matches the expected level. That check is performed only in H5B__cache_deserialize() when a node is first loaded into the metadata cache. A crafted HDF5 file whose B-tree child pointer refers back to a node already in the cache, such as a node that points to itself, bypasses the check and causes unbounded recursion, leading to stack exhaustion and a crash. This can be triggered by calling H5Gget_info() or H5Gget_num_objs() on a group in the crafted file, which reaches H5B_iterate() through H5G__obj_info() and H5G__stab_count(). An attacker who can get a user or application to open a malicious file can cause a denial of service.

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-120689 updated cvss 5.5

hdf5: hdf5: Denial of Service via uncontrolled recursion in B-tree processing

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI (RHEL AI) 3 hdf5 Red Hat OpenStack Platform 13 (Queens) hdf5
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Hardened Images hdf5
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
7d ago

Exploit prediction

0.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 7% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 4.3 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U
CNA 4.0 4.3 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Affected products

  • The HDF Group HDF5

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.