Intel Hyperscan: Out-of-bounds read leads to denial of service
Summary
Hyperscan, a regex matching library, has an out-of-bounds read in versions before v5.4.2.1 when used by applications in user mode (Ring 3). A local attacker with a low-privileged, authenticated account can trigger it to crash or disrupt the affected application or host. Confidentiality and integrity impacts are low or none, and no user interaction is required.
Affected
- Hyperscan before v5.4.2.1 (per CNA record and VulDB)
- Software that embeds Hyperscan: not identified in the sources
Fixed in
- v5.4.2.1 (upgrade target listed by VulDB; not yet confirmed on Intel's advisory page, which does not list this CVE ID in the excerpt reviewed)
Workaround
Unknown.
Exploitation
- VulDB: technical details unknown, no public exploit available
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- No evidence of in-the-wild exploitation found
Our recommendation
- Inventory where Hyperscan is used, including bundled copies in vendor products
- Ask software vendors whether their builds include v5.4.2.1 or later, and patch at the next maintenance window
- On shared or multi-user hosts, restrict local account access as a general hardening measure (not vendor guidance)
- Prioritise hosts where untrusted users can run code; single-user endpoints are lower priority
Public exploits
PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit and Exploit-DB list nothing for this CVE.
Research sources
- Intel Security Advisory INTEL-SA-01511 intel.com
- VulDB entry for the vulnerability vuldb.com
- OpenCVE entry for CVE-2026-40216 app.opencve.io
- Strix CVE entry for CVE-2026-40216 www.strix.ai
- Intel Product Security Center www.intel.com
Researched and written up in English and German by an AI (Claude by Anthropic) based on NVD, CISA, EPSS and the sources listed. The vendor information is authoritative. Researched on 11 Nov 2026, 19:48.
Original description (NVD)
Out-of-bounds read for some Hyperscan before version v5.4.2.1 within Ring 3: User Applications may allow a denial of service. Unprivileged software adversary with an authenticated user combined with a low complexity attack may enable denial of service. This result may potentially occur via local access when attack requirements are not present without special internal knowledge and requires no user interaction. The potential vulnerability may impact the confidentiality (low), integrity (none) and availability (low) of the vulnerable system, resulting in subsequent system confidentiality (none), integrity (none) and availability (none) impacts.
Sources
The tracker combines official, freely usable data sources – updated continuously:
- NVD (NIST) – CVEs, rating (CVSS), affected products
- CISA KEV – vulnerabilities confirmed by CISA as actively exploited
- CISA Vulnrichment – CISA assessment (SSVC) in the official CVE record
- FIRST EPSS – probability of exploitation
- Microsoft MSRC – Patch Tuesday: vulnerabilities, severity, updates
- PoC-in-GitHub – public proof-of-concept repositories
- Metasploit (Rapid7) – modules of the Metasploit Framework
- Exploit-DB (OffSec) – archive of public exploits (links only)
- Patch days: official vendor pages (linked per vendor) (Vendor patch days)
This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS data © FIRST.org.
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