CVE-2026-15534: perl Out-of-bounds Read

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-15534 is a medium (CVSS 5.7) Out-of-bounds Read vulnerability in perl. EPSS estimates a 0.26% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 16.3% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 09-08-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 08-09-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

Perl versions through 5.45.1 have out-of-bounds heap reads and writes during regular expression matching via an undersized superlinear cache in S_regmatch. The regex engine's superlinear cache holds one bit per subject position for each participating WHILEM node, so the bit count is the subject length plus one times the number of nodes. Nothing checks that product for positive overflow of the signed 32-bit count: a 286331153 byte subject matched against a pattern with 15 participating nodes stores the count as 14, leaving a two byte cache. The cache is then indexed from the real match position and node number, so reads go past the end of the allocation, and on failure CACHEsayNO sets a bit past it. A caller that matches an attacker controlled subject of this size against a pattern of this shape can crash the process or corrupt heap memory.

• CWE-125Out-of-bounds ReadThe product reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.
• CWE-190Integer Overflow or WraparoundThe product performs a calculation that can produce an integer overflow or wraparound when the logic assumes that the resulting value will always be larger than the original value. This occurs when an integer value is incremented to a value that is too large to store in the associated representation. When this occurs, the value may become a very small or negative number.
• CWE-787Out-of-bounds WriteThe product writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.