Medium severity · published Oct 8, 2026
CVE-2026-44037
Uncontrolled recursion in DCMTK JSON reader allows denial of service
5.5
CVSS
0.1%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Uncontrolled mutual recursion between DcmJSONReader::parseDataSet(), DcmJSONReader::parseElement() and DcmJSONReader::parseSequence() in dcmdata/libsrc/dcjsonrd.cc of OFFIS DCMTK 3.7.0 allows an attacker to cause a denial of service (stack exhaustion and process crash) via a crafted DICOM JSON document with deeply nested sequence (SQ) values. The json2dcm tool and any service that converts untrusted DICOM JSON (for example, DICOMweb payloads) with this reader are affected. The issue is fixed in commit cf955e64c35a1e07ba10698f639d5dcdec53b9d7.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.1% · higher than 1% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
DC
DCMTK · OFFIS
3.7.0 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-44037
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-44037
issue-tracking
https://support.dcmtk.org/redmine/issues/1225
patch
https://github.com/DCMTK/dcmtk/commit/cf955e64c35a1e07ba10698f639d5dcdec53b9d7
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