Heap disclosure and crashes via unbounded RPC unmarshalling
Published May 21, 2026 · Updated May 21, 2026
Out-of-bounds reads in Netatalk 3.1.0 through 4.4.2 allow remote authenticated users to expose heap data or crash afpd. The Spotlight RPC unmarshaller fails to receive or track the request buffer length and inconsistently enforces boundaries while parsing client-controlled structure metadata. The path is reachable only when nondefault Spotlight indexing is enabled; exploitation can disclose adjacent heap data, crash an afpd child, or exhaust resources, with no evidence of code execution.
Summary
What happened
Out-of-bounds reads in Netatalk 3.1.0 through 4.4.2 allow remote authenticated users to expose heap data or crash afpd. The Spotlight RPC unmarshaller fails to receive or track the request buffer length and inconsistently enforces boundaries while parsing client-controlled structure metadata. The path is reachable only when nondefault Spotlight indexing is enabled; exploitation can disclose adjacent heap data, crash an afpd child, or exhaust resources, with no evidence of code execution.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-44066
- Published
- May 21, 2026
- Updated
- May 21, 2026
- Vendor
- Netatalk
- Product
- Netatalk
- Classifications
- CWE-125, T1499.004
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 21, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 21, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=3.1.0 <=4.4.2
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
Check the software in your environment
Book a demo to see how Hinoki identifies affected software and validates exploitability in your environment.
Book a demo