# CVE-2026-16005: Memory corruption in Armoury Crate

> A local attacker can cause a system crash by freeing arbitrary memory through a crafted IOCTL request in the Armoury Crate driver.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.8 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 8 Sep 2026
- **Updated:** 17 Sep 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-rfhm-hwp6-xrr6

## What is CVE-2026-16005?

CVE-2026-16005 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in ASUS Armoury Crate, published on 8 Sep 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference in Armoury Crate driver allows a local user to free arbitrary memory via a crafted IOCTL request by bypassing the driver's verification, which can corrupt data structures and cause a system crash (BSOD).Refer to the '
Security Update for Armoury Crate App  ' section on the ASUS Security Advisory for more information.

Weakness: CWE-763 (Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-16005?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-16005?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-16005 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-16005 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-16005 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-16005 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-16005 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in ASUS Armoury Crate, published on 8 Sep 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-16005 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: ASUS Armoury Crate. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-16005/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-16005/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-16005
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-16005
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-16005

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-16005/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.