Uncontrolled recursion in the DCMTK DICOM dataset parser allows unauthenticated remote denial of service
Uncontrolled recursion in DcmSequenceOfItems::read() and DcmItem::read() in the dcmdata library of OFFIS DCMTK 3.7.0 allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to cause a denial of service (stack exhaustion and process crash) via a DICOM dataset containing deeply nested sequences (SQ elements). The dataset can be sent in a C-STORE request to storescp, dcmrecv, dcmqrscp, or any other DICOM service built on DCMTK, because the received dataset is parsed before any authentication takes place. Local tools such as dcmdump also crash when opening such a file. The issue is fixed in commit 885ff0f10372bd589b5f44cea974f28a3964cb0f, which adds a configurable sequence nesting depth limit (default 64).
CVE-2026-44031
Primary source · Revision 1
Imported from structured advisory data. Source references identify upstream records or fields; verify affected versions and your deployed configuration.
Security context
Source reference: cve:CVE-2026-44031
DCMTK
Source reference: /containers/cna/affected/0/product
- Affected versions
- Not stated in this record
- Fixed versions
- Not stated in this record
- Prerequisites
- Not stated in this record
Structured affected-version data
Original package identities and version rules from this source.
[
{
"cpes": [
"cpe:2.3:a:offis:dcmtk:3.7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
],
"repo": "https://github.com/DCMTK/dcmtk",
"vendor": "OFFIS",
"modules": [
"dcmdata",
"dcmnet"
],
"product": "DCMTK",
"versions": [
{
"status": "affected",
"version": "3.7.0"
}
],
"programFiles": [
"dcmdata/libsrc/dcsequen.cc",
"dcmdata/libsrc/dcitem.cc"
],
"collectionURL": "https://github.com/DCMTK/dcmtk",
"defaultStatus": "unknown"
}
]- Related CVEs
- CVE-2026-44031
Source reference:
/cveMetadata/cveId
Publisher severity
high
Source reference: /containers/cna/metrics
- Event
- #12524 · Revision 1
- Added to Heist Feed
- Publisher date