CVE-2026-54559 PocketSphinx: Buffer overflows in language and acoustic model loading code
Attackers can trigger buffer overflows and memory corruption by providing malicious speech model files, potentially leading to code execution or crashes.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-54559?
CVE-2026-54559 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in cmusphinx pocketsphinx, published on 14 Sep 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
PocketSphinx is a small speech recognizer. Prior to 5.1.1, the trie language-model loaders in src/lm/ngram_model_trie.c do not adequately validate boundary conditions in ARPA, DMP, and binary format headers, and the acoustic-model loaders in src/mdef.c and src/util/bio.c use sscanf with unbounded string fields. Loading an invalid, corrupted, or malicious language or acoustic model can therefore cause stack or heap buffer overflows and memory corruption. An attacker who can write to a directory selected by POCKETSPHINX_PATH can replace or add a model file that PocketSphinx later loads; users of PocketSphinx 5prealpha have no backported patch and must migrate to the fixed release. This issue is fixed in version 5.1.1.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-54559?
3 open source packages ship an affected version, including pocketsphinx.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
pocketsphinx PyPI | All versions | 5.1.1 |
pocketsphinx PyPI | All versions | 5.1.1 |
pocketsphinx PyPI | All versions | 5.1.1 |
How do I fix CVE-2026-54559?
Upgrade pocketsphinx to 5.1.1 or later.
Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.
Is CVE-2026-54559 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-54559 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-56r5-2p2f-7cxp, PYSEC-2026-3498, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-54559.