Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-50811 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-50811 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-50811?
- Informational severity, with a CVSS score of 7.1, published 7 July 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- FreeType FreeType 2.14.3 and earlier versions before commit 5a280ecde6f324de0d226261036e736e0cb49a71.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-50811?
- A patch was published on 2026-05-13: Fix committed to FreeType source (commit 5a280ec) Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is CVE-2026-50811 attacked?
- It is attacked with local access, in a software library.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-50811?
- Check whether anything you run is named in the advisory. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
An out-of-bounds read vulnerability exists in FreeType's TrueType GX implementation within `src/truetype/ttgxvar.c`. The root cause is in the `TT_Get_Var_Design` function, which is used by the public `FT_Get_Var_Design_Coordinates` API. When a caller requests more design coordinates than the font actually possesses, the function fails to properly bound its loop, continuing to read from the `FT_Var_Axis` array into adjacent heap memory. An attacker can exploit this by providing a crafted variable font and requesting excess coordinates, leading to the disclosure of `FT_Face` pointers and `libc` addresses. This primitive can be used to bypass ASLR in processes that parse untrusted font files. The issue was fixed by ensuring excess coordinates are zero-filled instead of read from memory.
Affected products
- FreeType FreeType 2.14.3 and earlier versions before commit 5a280ecde6f324de0d226261036e736e0cb49a71
Timeline
- 2026-05-12: other: Vulnerability identified in FreeType origin/master
- 2026-05-13: patched: Fix committed to FreeType source (commit 5a280ec)
- 2026-07-07: disclosed: CVE-2026-50811 published
References
- https://gist.github.com/junius-sec/6dd0fb25b643f89914083a38e5e57ace
- https://github.com/freetype/freetype/commit/5a280ecde6f324de0d226261036e736e0cb49a71
- https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/freetype/freetype/-/commit/5a280ecde6f324de0d226261036e736e0cb49a71
- https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/freetype/freetype/-/issues/1436