CVE-2026-43661: Buffer Overflow

Published May 11, 2026
·
Updated

A buffer overflow issue was addressed with improved memory handling. This issue is fixed in iOS 18.7.10 and iPadOS 18.7.10, iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5, macOS Sequoia 15.7.8, macOS Sonoma 14.8.8, macOS Tahoe 26.5, tvOS 26.5, watchOS 26.5. Processing a maliciously crafted image may corrupt process memory.

Other sources

Accelerate. An out-of-bounds read was addressed with improved bounds checking.

— Apple

Accessibility. This issue was addressed through improved state management.

— Apple

Accounts. A parsing issue in the handling of directory paths was addressed with improved path validation.

— Apple

Accounts. A permissions issue was addressed with additional restrictions.

— Apple

afpfs. A buffer overflow was addressed with improved bounds checking.

— Apple

Credit

Юлия Мерцалова, Peter Malone, Rahul Raj, Pinak Oza, Robert Mindo, an anonymous researcher, tamdao, Franco Belman at Blackwing Intelligence, Nicolas Rabrenovic, Irvin Wang, impost0r (ret2plt), David Ige - Beryllium Security, 이재영, Pavan Nallamothu, Jared Reyes, John Lussier, Seonung Park, ALTV!ST (altvi.st/), Dun, YingQi Shi@@Mas0nShi(DBAppSecurity's WeBin lab), Andreas Jaegersberger & Ro Achterberg(Nosebeard Labs), Richard Zana, Nathaniel Oh@@calysteon, Daniel Williams, Gergely Kalman@@gergely_kalman, Anonymous(TrendAI Zero Day Initiative), Mathis Mansière, Csaba Fitzl@@theevilbit(Iru), James Duffy@@0x4A616D657344, Matthew Schneider, XBreach.ai(Nosebeard Labs), Dallas Dubs(Nosebeard Labs), Aaron Grattafiori - NVIDIA AI Red Team, CVE-2026-3784, CVE-2026-3783, HvxyZLF, Lance Cain - Offensive Security Engineer, SpecterOps Inc., Jonathan Bar Or@@yo_yo_yo_jbo, Anthony Laou Hine Tsuei@@anarcheuz, Gil Portnoy & Henry, Ayaan Ahmad, Hyunwoo Kim@@v4bel, erdene-och Byambabayar, Niels Hofmans, Manuel Fernandez (Stackhopper Security), Stanislav Jelezoglo(Positive Technologies), Ilya Andr (andrd3v)(Positive Technologies), Redon Gashi, Trung Nguyen@@everping(CyStack), Dave G., Atul R V & Ashmit Sharma, Hcamael, 章鱼哥 （aipyaipy.com）@@aipy, Aswin Kumar Gokulakannan, Surya Narayan Kushwaha, Cem Onat Karagun, Tristan Madani@@TristanInSec(Talence Security), Jonathan Alush-Aben, Arni Hardarson, Michael DePlante@@izobashi(TrendAI Zero Day Initiative), Gandalf4a(PKU), Anton Pakhunov, PETOWORKS의 Bugeun Choi@@Bugeun, Geonha Lee@@leegn4a, Dhiyanesh Selvaraj@@redroot97, hxr1(STAR Labs SG Pte), Hiroki Imai (LAC Co.(STAR Labs SG Pte), Ltd.)(STAR Labs SG Pte), Billy Jheng Bing Jhong(STAR Labs SG Pte), Pan Zhenpeng@@Peterpan0927(STAR Labs SG Pte), Ashish Kunwar, Igor Ushakov, Ryan Hileman via Xint Code (xint.io), Adam Doupé(ASU SEFCOM), f0r(MurphySec), Mahmoud Abdelmoniem(ThreatBook), Feng Xue(ThreatBook), XGPT(ThreatBook), Wang Yu, Lyutoon, Hiroki Imai (LAC Co., Ltd.), Fábio Luís@@scanpt, DARKNAVY@@DarkNavyOrg, Gor Aleksanyan, Michal Kosiorek, Eddy Tsalolikhin, Asjid Kalam@@odinshell, Hyunwoo Kim@@v4bel(ThreatBook), Wang Yu(STAR Labs SG Pte), Ernesto Martínez García, Calif Research, Ji'an Zhou, Mingxuan Yang, Ye Zhang, Ye Zhang@@VAR10CK(Baidu Security), Vladislav Shevchenko (Positive Technologies)(STAR Labs SG Pte), Pasquale Scola(STAR Labs SG Pte), Lukas Gerlach, Kirin@@Pwnrin(Fudan University), LFY@@secsys(Fudan University), Ruslan Dautov, CVE-2026-4424, Prathamesh Walunj, Amy (amys.website), Atul R V, Daisuke Hatakeyama Research)@@SYZD, Richard Zana(Nosebeard Labs), wh0am1i, stratan@@5tratan, Robert Tran, Mickey Jin@@patch1t, Dan Raviv, Koh M. Nakagawa@@tsunek0h(FFRI Security Inc), Matej Moravec@@MacejkoMoravec, Sindre Sorhus, Francisco Knabe, Hcamael(Stripe), 章鱼哥 （aipyaipy.com）@@aipy(Stripe), JC Alvarado(Stripe), Jacob Hazak, @@pixiepointsec, Asaf Cohen, Junming C.(Chapoly1305), Vivek Dhar, ASI (RM) in Border Security Force, FTR HQ BSF Kashmir, Claudio Bozzato(Cisco Talos), Francesco Benvenuto(Cisco Talos), Calif.io in collaboration with Claude, Anthropic Research, Kitten Food, Tien-Chih Lin(CyCraft Technology), Bruce Dang(Calif), Adam Franke(CyStack), yk lin@@pixiepointsec, wdszzml(Bynar), Atuin Automated Vulnerability Discovery Engine(Bynar), Alfredo Pesoli@@__rev(Bynar), Jorge Welch@@jorgwelch, Arash Ale Ebrahim(SCy), Narendra Singh@@_3P1C, Rodolphe Brunetti@@eisw0lf(Lupus Nova), Daniel Febrero, Arni Hardarson (Neonix Security), ret2happy, Huỳnh Tấn Ngàn, Jiri Ha, Seiji Sakurai@@HeapSmasher, Ashish Kunwar(MurphySec), Stanislav Jelezoglo, Alex Radocea, Do Young Park, OpenAI Codex Security - Amy Burnett, wwwlk, Artem Dinaburg(Trail of Bits via Anthropic CVD), Cantina, dr3dd, Tommy DeVoss@@thedawgyg(Braze Security Team), Gurpreet Shergill(Calif), Gia Bui@@yabeow(Calif), Rhyru9, Merrick Hare, Kwak Kiyong, Song Nuri, Khai Tran, Gurpreet Shergill, Drinor Selmanaj (Sentry), Utkarsh Pal, Ignacio Sanmillan@@ulexec, Using GLM(Z), stratan@@5tratan(Almamater Technologies), Soyeon Park(DEVCORE Research Team), Amy Burnett(DEVCORE Research Team), Khai Tran(DEVCORE Research Team), sherkito(DEVCORE Research Team), Kota Toda(DEVCORE Research Team), HexRabbit@@h3xr4bb1t(DEVCORE Research Team), NiNi@@terrynini38514(DEVCORE Research Team), Brian Carpenter, Milad Nasr, Nicholas Carlini with Claude, Anthropic, Janggoon Lee(Out of Bounds), Mateusz Krzywicki (iVerify.io), Josef Korbel, Josef Korbel (Citadelo)(Cisco Talos), Thomas Guillem, Shubham Chaskar, Seonwook Kim, lattice, Henock Habte, Hossein Lotfi@@hosselot(TrendAI Zero Day Initiative), Utkarsh Pal(Talence Security), Narendra Singh@@_3P1C(Calif), Josef Korbel (Citadelo)(Calif), Dung Do@@_piers2(Calif), Luke Francis, Behzad Najjarpour Jabbari@@_G4ru_, Vitaly Simonovich, Muhamad Syaiful, Christian Meurer Xavier, Josef Korbel(Calif), Mohit Negi, Nan Wang@@eternalsakura13, CVE-2026-28979, Shaheen Fazim, Stuart Wallace, Vamshi Paili, Tony Gorez for Reverse Society@@tonygo_, CVE-2026-1837, Nicholas Soh, David Ige(Beryllium Security), Alan Wang, Ailsa Sun, Christopher W. Fletcher, Hovav Shacham, David Kohlbrenner, Riccardo Paccagnella, Niels Hofmans(TrendAI Zero Day Initiative), Suresh Sundaram, Johnny Franks@@0xjohnny, Google Threat Analysis Group, Mihalis Haatainen, Ari Hawking, Somair Ansar, Vaagn Vardanian, popku1337(STAR Labs SG Pte), Aswin kumar Gokulakannan, Chris Betz(Talence Security), Zhongcheng Li (CK01), Omar Cerrito, Ricardo Prado, Ian van der Wurff (ian.nl), Ilya Sc. Jowell A., Jorge Welch, Doron Assness, Andy Koo@@andykoo(Hexens), Adriatik Raci, kwak kiyong / kakaogames, Adel Bouachraoui, greenbynox, Yuhao Hu, Yuanming Lai, Chenggang Wu, Zhe Wang, Idan Masas(TrendAI Zero Day Initiative), DARKNAVY@@DarkNavyOrg(TrendAI Zero Day Initiative), Daniel Rhea, Luka Rački, wac(TrendAI Zero Day Initiative), Kookhwan Lee(TrendAI Zero Day Initiative), Maher Azzouzi, Aisle offensive security research team (Joshua Rogers(Calif), Luigino Camastra(Calif), Igor Morgenstern(Calif), (Calif), Guido Vranken)(Calif), Maher Azzouzi(Calif), Ngan Nguyen(Calif), Khiem Tran, lebr0nli(National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University), Security, Systems Lab, Kenneth Hsu(Palo Alto Networks), Jérôme DJOUDER, Abhay Kailasia@@abhay_kailasia(Safran Mumbai India), Brendon Tiszka(Google Project Zero), CVE-2025-14017, CVE-2025-14819, Kun Peeks@@SwayZGl1tZyyy, Aswin Kumar Gokula Kannan, wdszzml, Atuin Automated Vulnerability Discovery Engine, beist, Yiğit Can YILMAZ@@yilmazcanyigit, Prathamesh Walunj@@attahasa, Surya Kushwaha(Supernetworks), Robert Tran(Supernetworks), Peter Malone(Supernetworks), Dave G.(Supernetworks), Alex Radocea(Supernetworks), Pan ZhenPeng@@Peterpan0927(STAR Labs SG Pte), w0wbox

Affected Software

14 affected componentsFixes available
Apple iOS<26.5
26.5
Apple iPadOS<26.5
26.5
Apple macOS Tahoe<26.5
26.5
Apple tvOS<26.5
26.5
Apple WatchOS<26.5
26.5
Apple macOS Sequoia<15.7.8
15.7.8
Apple macOS Sonoma<14.8.8
14.8.8
Apple iOS<18.7.10
18.7.10
Apple iPadOS<18.7.10
18.7.10
Apple iPadOS<26.5
Apple iPhone OS<26.5
Apple macOS>=26.0<26.5
Apple tvOS<26.5
Apple WatchOS<26.5

Remediation

Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.

  1. Upgrade

    Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in 26.5
  2. Upgrade

    Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in 15.7.8
  3. Upgrade

    Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in 14.8.8
  4. Upgrade

    Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in 18.7.10

Event History

May 11, 2026
Data Sourced
via Apple·12:00 AM
DescriptionWeaknessAffected Software
Updated
via Apple·12:00 AM
DescriptionWeakness
Updated
via Apple·12:00 AM
DescriptionWeaknessAffected Software
Updated
via Apple·12:00 AM
Affected Software
CVE Published
via MITRE·08:08 PM
Data Sourced
via MITRE·08:08 PM
DescriptionWeakness
Data Sourced
via NVD·09:19 PM
DescriptionSeverityWeaknessAffected Software
Jul 27, 2026
Updated
via Apple·12:00 AM
DescriptionWeaknessAffected Software
Aug 17, 2026
Updated
via Apple·12:00 AM
DescriptionWeaknessAffected Software
Updated
via Apple·12:00 AM
Affected Software

Parent advisories

This vulnerability appears in the following advisories.

Peer vulnerabilities

Found alongside the following vulnerabilities.

Frequently Asked Questions

1

What is the severity of CVE-2026-43661?

CVE-2026-43661 is considered a high severity vulnerability due to its potential to allow arbitrary memory corruption.

2

How do I fix CVE-2026-43661?

To fix CVE-2026-43661, update your device to iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, macOS Tahoe 26.5, tvOS 26.5, or watchOS 26.5.

3

What impact does CVE-2026-43661 have on my device?

CVE-2026-43661 can lead to a buffer overflow issue that may compromise process memory when processing maliciously crafted images.

4

Which Apple products are affected by CVE-2026-43661?

CVE-2026-43661 affects multiple Apple products including iOS, iPadOS, macOS Tahoe, tvOS, and watchOS versions prior to 26.5.

5

Is CVE-2026-43661 a remote code execution vulnerability?

No, CVE-2026-43661 is primarily a memory corruption vulnerability rather than a direct remote code execution vulnerability.

Company

Resources

Contact

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