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

Source: https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-54389-national-security-agency-ghidra-uncontrolled-resource-consumption  
Publisher: Junglewise Threat Intelligence, https://junglewise.ai/threats  
Published: 2026-08-20. Updated: 2026-09-25  
License: CC BY 4.0 with a link back

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](https://junglewise.ai/threats/technologies/ghidra). Vendors: [National Security Agency](https://junglewise.ai/threats/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

- [https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra/releases/tag/Ghidra_12.1.3_build](https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra/releases/tag/Ghidra_12.1.3_build)
- [https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra/security/advisories/GHSA-f75p-8cqj-9v3g](https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra/security/advisories/GHSA-f75p-8cqj-9v3g)

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