CVE-2026-18649 Gstreamer1-plugins-good: gst-plugins-good: unbounded memory growth in rtph264depay and rtph265depay rtp depayloaders

High 7.5 Published 6 Aug 2026 Updated 23 Sep 2026

Remote attackers can cause denial of service in GStreamer applications by sending fragmented RTP packets that exhaust memory due to missing size limits in H.264/H.265 depayloaders.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Not needed
Attackable: Over the internet
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: Available

What is CVE-2026-18649?

CVE-2026-18649 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, published on 6 Aug 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

A flaw was found in the GStreamer gst-plugins-good package. The rtph264depay and rtph265depay RTP depayloader elements do not enforce a maximum size limit on the reassembly buffer used during fragmented RTP packet processing. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can send a continuous stream of RTP fragments without ever transmitting an end-of-fragment marker, causing the reassembly buffer to grow without bound until process memory is exhausted. This results in a denial of service through process termination.

Weakness: CWE-770

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-18649?

Linux distribution packages (36)

`gstreamer1-plugins-good` AlmaLinux:10	All versions	`1.26.7-2.el10_2.3`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-gtk` AlmaLinux:10	All versions	`1.26.7-2.el10_2.3`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good` AlmaLinux:9	All versions	`1.22.12-7.el9_8.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-gtk` AlmaLinux:9	All versions	`1.22.12-7.el9_8.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:10.2	All versions	`0:1.26.7-2.el10_2.3`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:10.2	All versions	`0:1.26.7-2.el10_2.3`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-debugsource` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:10.2	All versions	`0:1.26.7-2.el10_2.3`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-gtk` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:10.2	All versions	`0:1.26.7-2.el10_2.3`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-gtk-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:10.2	All versions	`0:1.26.7-2.el10_2.3`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-qt6-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:10.2	All versions	`0:1.26.7-2.el10_2.3`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.12-7.el9_8.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.12-7.el9_8.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-debugsource` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.12-7.el9_8.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-gtk` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.12-7.el9_8.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-gtk-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.12-7.el9_8.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-qt-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.12-7.el9_8.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good` Red Hat:rhel_e4s:9.2::appstream	All versions	`0:1.18.4-8.el9_2.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-debuginfo` Red Hat:rhel_e4s:9.2::appstream	All versions	`0:1.18.4-8.el9_2.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-debugsource` Red Hat:rhel_e4s:9.2::appstream	All versions	`0:1.18.4-8.el9_2.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-gtk` Red Hat:rhel_e4s:9.2::appstream	All versions	`0:1.18.4-8.el9_2.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-gtk-debuginfo` Red Hat:rhel_e4s:9.2::appstream	All versions	`0:1.18.4-8.el9_2.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-qt-debuginfo` Red Hat:rhel_e4s:9.2::appstream	All versions	`0:1.18.4-8.el9_2.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good` Red Hat:rhel_e4s:9.4::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.1-4.el9_4.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-debuginfo` Red Hat:rhel_e4s:9.4::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.1-4.el9_4.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-debugsource` Red Hat:rhel_e4s:9.4::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.1-4.el9_4.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-gtk` Red Hat:rhel_e4s:9.4::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.1-4.el9_4.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-gtk-debuginfo` Red Hat:rhel_e4s:9.4::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.1-4.el9_4.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-qt-debuginfo` Red Hat:rhel_e4s:9.4::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.1-4.el9_4.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good` Red Hat:rhel_eus:9.6::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.12-5.el9_6.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-debuginfo` Red Hat:rhel_eus:9.6::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.12-5.el9_6.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-debugsource` Red Hat:rhel_eus:9.6::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.12-5.el9_6.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-gtk` Red Hat:rhel_eus:9.6::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.12-5.el9_6.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-gtk-debuginfo` Red Hat:rhel_eus:9.6::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.12-5.el9_6.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good-qt-debuginfo` Red Hat:rhel_eus:9.6::appstream	All versions	`0:1.22.12-5.el9_6.2`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good` Rocky Linux:10	All versions	`0:1.26.7-2.el10_2.3`
`gstreamer1-plugins-good` Rocky Linux:9	All versions	`0:1.22.12-7.el9_8.2`

How do I fix CVE-2026-18649?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2026-18649 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-18649 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Public exploit code: 1 proofs of concept on GitHub.

Sources

Also known as ALSA-2026:53451, ALSA-2026:53452, CLSA-2026-1786699059, CLSA-2026-1786714360, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-18649, ECHO-49ac-ba0f-ce98 and 12 more.