Is CVE-2026-54389 exploited in the wild?

No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-54389 being exploited in the wild.

How severe is CVE-2026-54389?

Medium severity, with a CVSS score of 5.5, published 20 August 2026.

Which products and versions are affected?

National Security Agency Ghidra before 12.1.3.

Is there a fix for CVE-2026-54389?

A patch was published on 2026-08-18: Version 12.1.3 released Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.

How is CVE-2026-54389 attacked?

It is attacked with local access, in a software library.

Am I affected by CVE-2026-54389?

Check whether you run National Security Agency Ghidra at an affected version. 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.

CVE-2026-54389: National Security Agency Ghidra uncontrolled resource consumption in PDB parser

CVE-2026-54389 · Severity: medium · CVSS 5.5 · Published 2026-08-20

Ghidra is a reverse-engineering toolkit used by security researchers and analysts to examine binary files and malware. A flaw in the PDB (program database) file parser allows an attacker to crash the Ghidra application by supplying a specially crafted PDB file, disrupting analysis workflows and potentially halting automated malware triage pipelines.

Technologies: National Security Agency Ghidra. Vendors: National Security Agency.

Quick answers

Is CVE-2026-54389 exploited in the wild?: No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-54389 being exploited in the wild.
How severe is CVE-2026-54389?: Medium severity, with a CVSS score of 5.5, published 20 August 2026.
Which products and versions are affected?: National Security Agency Ghidra before 12.1.3.
Is there a fix for CVE-2026-54389?: A patch was published on 2026-08-18: Version 12.1.3 released Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
How is CVE-2026-54389 attacked?: It is attacked with local access, in a software library.
Am I affected by CVE-2026-54389?: Check whether you run National Security Agency Ghidra at an affected version. 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

The vulnerability is an uncontrolled resource consumption issue (CWE-400) in the AbstractPdb.deserializeParameters() method. The PDB parser reads all remaining 32-bit integers from a stream into an unbounded ArrayList without validating the count, causing heap exhaustion when processing a malicious PDB with an oversized parameters section. A 40 MB crafted stream triggers ~10 million iterations, each allocating a heap Integer object, resulting in an OutOfMemoryError that unconditionally terminates the JVM process. The bug bypasses normal exception handling because OutOfMemoryError is a java.lang.Error, not a checked exception. Exploitation requires user interaction (opening a PDB file) but no privileges; attack vector is local. The vulnerability is patched in version 12.1.3.

Affected products

National Security Agency Ghidra before 12.1.3

Timeline

2026-08-19: disclosed
2026-08-18: patched: Version 12.1.3 released

References

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