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high 8.2

HSEC-2026-0012 json

Out-of-bounds read in Eq and Ord on numbers with extreme exponents

published 8d ago modified 8d ago

cvss
8.2
version 3.1, OSV
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
—
no score, EPSS covers CVEs only
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

# Out-of-bounds read in Eq and Ord on numbers with extreme exponents

`scientific-0.3.9.0` reimplemented `Eq` and `Ord` without normalising their arguments. The new implementation short-circuits on `integerLog10' c + e` computed in `Int`, which overflows when the base-10 exponent is close to `maxBound :: Int`. The overflowed comparison then falls through to `magnitude (e1 - e2)`, where the exponent difference overflows to a negative `Int` as well. `magnitude` indexed its cached power-of-ten array without a bounds check, so the negative index performed an out-of-bounds read and the process died with `SIGSEGV`.

With `scientific-0.3.9.0` (GHC 9.10.3, x86_64-linux), as reported in [basvandijk/scientific#120](https://github.com/basvandijk/scientific/issues/120):

```haskell import Data.Scientific

main :: IO () main = print (scientific 10 maxBound == scientific 1 minBound) ```

``` $ ./repro; echo "exit=$?" exit=139 ```

The issue was discovered when Stackage nightly test suites (`genvalidity-hspec-aeson`, `genvalidity-sydtest-aeson`) started segfaulting after upgrading to `scientific-0.3.9.0`: their property tests round-trip `aeson` `Value`s, which produces `Scientific`s with extreme exponents.

Versions before `0.3.9.0` did not crash, but `Eq`/`Ord` returned invalid results there instead (the normalisation-based implementation overflows the exponent, reporting `scientific 10 maxBound == scientific 1 minBound` as `True`). The same unchecked read was also reachable through `(+)` and `(-)` on older versions, guarded only by the documented warning about the potential `10^e` blowup — reading outside the cache is not.

## Resolution

`scientific-0.3.10.0` computes the logarithms using `Integer`, fixing both the crash and the invalid comparison results, and bounds-checks `magnitude`, so a negative exponent now raises an error instead of reading out of bounds. All entry points (`Eq`, `Ord`, `(+)`, `(-)`) are covered; upgrade to `scientific-0.3.10.0` or later.

Note that printing values with exponents close to `maxBound :: Int` remains unreliable due to the inherent `Int` exponent overflow in `normalize`; this limitation is documented upstream and postponed to the next major release.

## Credits

Reported by Tom Sydney Kerckhove (@NorfairKing); fixed by Oleg Grenrus (@phadej).

Patch / fix

  • hackage scientific 0.3.10.0

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CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
OSV 3.1 8.2 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
hackage scientific
>=0.3.9.0, <0.3.10.0
0.3.10.0

References

Sources

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