ConnectBot SSH: Excessive allocation and integer overflow in DER private-key parsing

published 2026-06-12 4 mo ago modified 2026-10-16 23 d ago also GHSA-vc8p-8pxg-rfwg , EUVD-2026-98839

cvss: 6.7; version 4.0, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.1%; EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 2%
public exploits: 0; none known

ConnectBot SSH Client Library is written in Kotlin with Kaitai Struct and KStateMachine. Prior to 0.3.1, DerReader.readLength() accepts excessive long-form DER length octets, accumulates them into an Int, and primitive readers allocate arrays without checking the declared size against the remaining input. An application or user that loads an attacker-provided private-key file through SshClient.authenticatePublicKey(), SshKeys.decodePemPrivateKey(), SshSigning.sign(), or SshSigning.getPublicKey() can trigger integer wraparound, excessive allocation, or an uncaught OutOfMemoryError. SSH server host keys and agent-forwarding messages do not use this application-supplied private-key input path. No usable weakened key and no confidentiality or integrity impact have been demonstrated. This issue is fixed in version 0.3.1.

Patch / fix

links 2

github.com/connectbot/cbssh@2bb9175 commit
github.com/connectbot/cbssh/releases/tag/v0.3.1 release

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-54697 updated 2026-11-07 cvss 5.5

org.connectbot.sshlib/sshlib: ConnectBot SSH Client Library: Denial of Service via malformed private key parsing

Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: partial
Assessed: 26 d ago (2026-10-13)

Exploit prediction

0.13% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 2% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	4.0	6.7	CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA	4.0	6.7	CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Affected packages

ecosystem	package	affected	fixed in
maven	org.connectbot.sshlib:sshlib	<=0.3.0	no fix listed

Affected products

connectbot cbssh

Classification

Weakness

CWE-190 Integer Overflow or Wraparound
CWE-789 Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary