VulnerabilityRUSTSEC-2026-0234 · rkyv
RUSTSEC-2026-0234: Insufficient archive validation can cause out-of-bounds reads in archives containing hash tables
Short answerA security vulnerability in the rkyv crate: Insufficient archive validation can cause out-of-bounds reads in archives containing hash tables. No severity score was published. Fixed in 0.8.17: update to a fixed version.
| Crate | rkyv |
|---|---|
| Type | Vulnerability (memory-exposure, denial-of-service) |
| Affected versions | From 0.8.0-rc.1 before 0.8.17. |
| Fixed in | 0.8.17 |
| Severity | not scored |
| Published | 2026-05-11 |
| Last changed | 2026-08-04 |
| Also known as | none |
What to do
- See which version you have:
cargo tree -i rkyv(it also shows which of your dependencies pulls it in). - Update within your version requirement:
cargo update -p rkyv. If the fix is a newer major or minor than your requirement allows, raise it in Cargo.toml (for examplerkyv = "0.8.17") or update the dependency that pulls it in. - Check again with
cargo audit, or paste your Cargo.lock into our Cargo.toml checker.
Details from the advisory
The archive validator could accept certain malformed relative pointers and invalid ArchivedHashTable states. In particular, the hash table verifier did not ensure that the number of occupied buckets matched the table's declared length.
A crafted archive could pass the checks performed by the safe rkyv::access and rkyv::from_bytes APIs and then cause an out-of-bounds read in later validation, lookup, or deserialization. Depending on the input, this could perform scalar or SIMD reads outside the archive buffer or crash the process.
Version 0.8.17 strengthens archive range validation and rejects hash tables whose number of occupied buckets does not match their declared length. Users who process untrusted archives should upgrade to 0.8.17 or later.
References
- Package: crates.io/crates/rkyv
- Advisory: rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2026-0234.html
- Report: github.com/rkyv/rkyv/issues/663
- Report: github.com/rkyv/rkyv/issues/664
- Report: github.com/rkyv/rkyv/issues/665
- Report: github.com/rkyv/rkyv/issues/669
- Web: github.com/rkyv/rkyv/commit/3c9d07fbff5949261bef38d00ab160b129bd9d3a
- Web: github.com/rkyv/rkyv/commit/57086e1c7f417d0360c7045905db3b3d8e30f866
From the RustSec Advisory Database (CC0-1.0) via the OSV export, downloaded Oct 24, 2026. Severity score computed from the published CVSS vector.
Other advisories for rkyv
- Vulnerability HighRUSTSEC-2021-0054 · 2021-04-28Archives may contain uninitialized memory
- VulnerabilityRUSTSEC-2026-0001 · 2026-01-05Potential Undefined Behaviors in `Arc<T>`/`Rc<T>` impls of `from_value` on OOM
- UnsoundRUSTSEC-2026-0122 · 2026-04-23Potential use-after-free due to lack of panic safety in `InlineVec::clear` and `SerVec::clear`
- VulnerabilityRUSTSEC-2026-0233 · 2026-05-11Crafted archives can cause a use-after-free during deserialization
- VulnerabilityRUSTSEC-2026-0235 · 2026-05-13Insufficient archive validation can cause out-of-bounds reads in archives containing Rc/Arc
Up next
Same craterkyv: security historyEvery advisory for this crate, and whether it is safe to use today.Read it next →Did this answer your question?