CVE-2026-77214 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.2) Out-of-bounds Read vulnerability. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
libexpat before commit 13c5f63 contains a heap buffer over-read vulnerability in xmlparse.c. XML_ParseBuffer advances the parse buffer end with parser->m_bufferEnd += len using a caller-supplied…
Description
libexpat before commit 13c5f63 contains a heap buffer over-read vulnerability in xmlparse.c. XML_ParseBuffer advances the parse buffer end with parser->m_bufferEnd += len using a caller-supplied length that is not validated against the allocated buffer size, so repeated XML_ParseBuffer calls move m_bufferEnd past the end of the heap allocation and subsequent parsing reads out of bounds. Reaching this path requires a parse buffer to already be present; otherwise XML_ParseBuffer returns XML_ERROR_NO_BUFFER. A buffer is present after a prior call to XML_GetBuffer, either directly (the common case) or indirectly through a prior XML_Parse call that allocates the buffer internally. The over-read discloses adjacent heap memory to the calling application, recovering heap pointers, libc function pointers, and code pointers sufficient to defeat ASLR and build further exploitation primitives.
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2026-77214 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Stop feeding it untrusted input: reject or quarantine files and payloads from unverified sources until you can upgrade, restrict accepted formats to the ones you actually need, and run the parsing or decoding step in a least-privileged sandbox or short-lived worker so a crash or corrupted read cannot reach the rest of the process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-77214 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.