CVE intelligence

CVE-2026-120758

Vulnerability intelligence

Published Nov 3, 2026Sources checked Nov 5, 2026

5.5MEDIUMCVSS out of 10

What this means

Review the available evidence

CVE-2026-120758 and is rated Medium severity with a CVSS score of 5.5. It is not in the current CISA KEV record we collected. That does not prove exploitation has not occurred.

What to do next

Remediation and response

Microsoft Security Response Center guidance

Vendor revision: Nov 5, 2026

Release Notes

CISA KEVNot listedBased on the latest collected catalog

EPSS0.1%Estimated 30-day exploitation probability

Ransomware useNot markedCISA KEV ransomware field

Threat actors0Source-linked actor relationships

Overview

What is CVE-2026-120758?

HDF5 through 2.2.0 contains a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in H5HL_unprotect() in src/H5HL.c. H5HL_protect() pins a single metadata cache entry for a local heap, either the heap prefix or the separate data block, and H5HL_unprotect() unpins it on the final unprotect.

When the metadata cache destroys a corrupted local heap entry, H5HL__prfx_dest() unlinks it from the heap by setting heap->prfx or heap->dblk to NULL. A crafted HDF5 file can therefore reach H5HL_unprotect() with no cached object to unpin, and the function passes the NULL pointer to H5AC_unpin_entry().

This causes an assertion failure in debug builds and a NULL pointer dereference and crash in release builds. An attacker who can get a user or application to open and traverse a malicious file can cause a denial of service.

Source: NVD