Medium severity · published May 13, 2026
CVE-2026-44288
protobufjs: Overlong UTF-8 decoding
5.3
CVSS
0.3%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
protobufjs compiles protobuf definitions into JavaScript (JS) functions. Prior to 7.5.6 and 8.0.2, protobufjs includes a minimal UTF-8 decoder that accepted overlong UTF-8 byte sequences and decoded them to their canonical characters instead of replacing them. An attacker who can provide protobuf binary data decoded through the affected UTF-8 path may be able to bypass application-level checks that inspect raw bytes before protobuf string decoding. For example, bytes that do not contain certain ASCII characters could decode to strings containing those characters. This vulnerability is fixed in 7.5.6 and 8.0.2.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
Low
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.3% · higher than 23% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
PR
protobuf.js · protobufjs
< 7.5.6; >= 8.0.0, < 8.0.2 · source: vendor
PR
Protobufjs · Protobufjs Project
before 7.5.6; 8.0.0 before 8.0.2 · source: NVD
Affected product
PR
protobuf.js
protobufjs
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