# CVE-2026-44036: Uncontrolled recursion in DCMTK xml2dcm allows denial of service

> An attacker can cause a denial of service via stack exhaustion by providing a crafted XML file to the DCMTK xml2dcm converter.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.8 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 8 Oct 2026
- **Updated:** 8 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2026-44036, GHSA-hch2-45m4-65gq, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-44036

## What is CVE-2026-44036?

CVE-2026-44036 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in OFFIS DCMTK, published on 8 Oct 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

Uncontrolled mutual recursion between DcmXMLParseHelper::parseDataSet() and DcmXMLParseHelper::parseSequence() in the XML-to-DICOM converter (dcmdata/libdcxml/xml2dcm.cc) of OFFIS DCMTK 3.7.0 allows an attacker to cause a denial of service (stack exhaustion and process crash) via a crafted XML file with deeply nested sequence and item elements. The xml2dcm tool and any service that converts untrusted XML to DICOM with this code are affected. The issue is fixed in commit 87f256d73e30656a822bf7d76d1cf1d9bb693954.

Weakness: CWE-674 (Uncontrolled Recursion)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-44036?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-44036?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-44036 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-44036 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-44036 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-44036 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-44036 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in OFFIS DCMTK, published on 8 Oct 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-44036 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: OFFIS DCMTK. 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-2026-44036/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-44036/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-44036
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-44036
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-44036

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-44036/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.