SOC status:Duty analyst on shift

UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityDeferred

CVE-2026-74766

Net::IDN::Punycode versions from 2.301 before 2.590 for Perl allow a heap use-after-free via a decoded code point that reallocates the output buffer in decode_punycode.

HIGH 8.4EPSS 0.14%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.14%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

Net::IDN::Punycode versions from 2.301 before 2.590 for Perl allow a heap use-after-free via a decoded code point that reallocates the output buffer in decode_punycode. The XS backend inserts each decoded code point into the string buffer of the scalar it returns. decode_punycode computes the insertion pointer first and only then grows the buffer when the code point does not fit. The growth reallocates the buffer and updates every pointer except the insertion pointer, so the move that follows and the write of the code point go through a freed pointer. The buffer starts at twice the label length, and a code point above U+FFFF takes four bytes in the output, so a label of such code points outgrows it and forces the reallocation. Version 2.301, the fix for CVE-2016-15059, introduced the defect. Only the XS backend is affected. Decoding an attacker-supplied punycode label reads and writes freed heap memory.

CVSS 3.1
8.4 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS
0.14% probability · 3th percentile
Public exploits
None in Exploit-DB
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness
CWE-416
Source
9b29abf9-4ab0-4765-b253-1875cd9b441e
EPSS trend
0%3%5%22 September 2026: 0.16%26 October 2026: 0.14%22 September 202626 October 2026

EPSS moved from 0.2% on 22 September 2026 to 0.1% on 26 October 2026.

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.