# CVE-2026-3503: Fault injection attack with ML-DSA and ML-KEM on ARM

> Physical attackers can compromise cryptographic keys in wolfSSL on ARM Cortex-M devices via fault injection attacks during post-quantum operations.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.3 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:P/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:L/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N/U:Amber`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 19 Mar 2026
- **Updated:** 19 Mar 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2026-3503, GHSA-pgc5-r6cv-2825, JLSEC-2026-705, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-3503

## What is CVE-2026-3503?

CVE-2026-3503 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Wolfssl Wolfssl, published on 19 Mar 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Protection mechanism failure in wolfCrypt post-quantum implementations (ML-KEM and ML-DSA) in wolfSSL on ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers allows a physical attacker to compromise key material and/or cryptographic outcomes via induced transient faults that corrupt or redirect seed/pointer values during Keccak-based expansion.

This issue affects wolfSSL (wolfCrypt): commit hash d86575c766e6e67ef93545fa69c04d6eb49400c6.

Weakness: CWE-335 (Incorrect Usage of Seeds in Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG))

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-3503?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Wolfssl Wolfssl.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-3503?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-3503 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-3503 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Wolfssl Wolfssl

- [CVE-2024-5991](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-5991/): Buffer overread in domain name matching (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2021-37155](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-37155/): Security feature bypass in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2020-36177](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-36177/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2014-2896](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2014-2896/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2014-2897](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2014-2897/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 9.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-3503 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-3503 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Wolfssl Wolfssl, published on 19 Mar 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-2026-3503 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Wolfssl Wolfssl. 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-2026-3503/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-3503/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-3503
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-3503
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-3503

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-3503/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.