6.3
MEDIUM CVSS 4.0
CVE-2026-55407
Buffa: Memory Exhaustion Denial of Service in decode_unknown_field via Unbounded Allocation
Description

Buffa is a pure-Rust Protocol Buffers implementation with first-class protobuf editions support. Prior to 0.8.0, the decode_unknown_field function in buffa's protobuf decoder allocated heap memory in proportion to untrusted input (unknown fields in the serialized protobuf) without enforcing an allocation budget, affecting any message decoded from untrusted input using code generated with preserve_unknown_fields=true (the default); a small, well-formed payload of nested unknown fields inside a StartGroup could trigger roughly 22x memory amplification (for example a 64 MiB input forcing about 1.4 GB of heap allocation), and length-delimited unknown fields could be sized arbitrarily, so an unauthenticated attacker could crash a process through memory exhaustion because the top-level message size cap did not account for in-decode amplification. This issue is fixed in version 0.8.0.

INFO

Published Date :

July 16, 2026, 5:16 p.m.

Last Modified :

July 16, 2026, 5:36 p.m.

Remotely Exploit :

Yes !
Affected Products

The following products are affected by CVE-2026-55407 vulnerability. Even if cvefeed.io is aware of the exact versions of the products that are affected, the information is not represented in the table below.

No affected product recoded yet

CVSS Scores
The Common Vulnerability Scoring System is a standardized framework for assessing the severity of vulnerabilities in software and systems. We collect and displays CVSS scores from various sources for each CVE.
Score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Score Impact Score Source
CVSS 4.0 MEDIUM [email protected]
Solution
Update the Buffa library to version 0.8.0 or later to fix memory exhaustion.
  • Update Buffa to version 0.8.0 or later.
  • Ensure proper allocation limits are enforced.
References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools
CWE - Common Weakness Enumeration

While CVE identifies specific instances of vulnerabilities, CWE categorizes the common flaws or weaknesses that can lead to vulnerabilities. CVE-2026-55407 is associated with the following CWEs:

We scan GitHub repositories to detect new proof-of-concept exploits. Following list is a collection of public exploits and proof-of-concepts, which have been published on GitHub (sorted by the most recently updated).

Results are limited to the first 15 repositories due to potential performance issues.

The following list is the news that have been mention CVE-2026-55407 vulnerability anywhere in the article.

The following table lists the changes that have been made to the CVE-2026-55407 vulnerability over time.

Vulnerability history details can be useful for understanding the evolution of a vulnerability, and for identifying the most recent changes that may impact the vulnerability's severity, exploitability, or other characteristics.

  • New CVE Received by [email protected]

    Jul. 16, 2026

    Action Type Old Value New Value
    Added Affected [{'vendor': 'anthropics', 'product': 'buffa', 'versions': [{'status': 'affected', 'version': '< 0.8.0'}]}]
    Added Description Buffa is a pure-Rust Protocol Buffers implementation with first-class protobuf editions support. Prior to 0.8.0, the decode_unknown_field function in buffa's protobuf decoder allocated heap memory in proportion to untrusted input (unknown fields in the serialized protobuf) without enforcing an allocation budget, affecting any message decoded from untrusted input using code generated with preserve_unknown_fields=true (the default); a small, well-formed payload of nested unknown fields inside a StartGroup could trigger roughly 22x memory amplification (for example a 64 MiB input forcing about 1.4 GB of heap allocation), and length-delimited unknown fields could be sized arbitrarily, so an unauthenticated attacker could crash a process through memory exhaustion because the top-level message size cap did not account for in-decode amplification. This issue is fixed in version 0.8.0.
    Added CVSS V4.0 AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/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
    Added CWE CWE-400
    Added CWE CWE-770
    Added CWE CWE-789
    Added Reference https://github.com/anthropics/buffa/commit/278fa43fcff661d4ee6bd83b75955a153d4281fc
    Added Reference https://github.com/anthropics/buffa/pull/184
    Added Reference https://github.com/anthropics/buffa/releases/tag/v0.8.0
    Added Reference https://github.com/anthropics/buffa/security/advisories/GHSA-f9qc-qg88-7pq5
EPSS is a daily estimate of the probability of exploitation activity being observed over the next 30 days. Following chart shows the EPSS score history of the vulnerability.