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Fencer Vulns
high 8.2

HSEC-2026-0012 json

Out-of-bounds read in Eq and Ord on numbers with extreme exponents

published 2026-11-03 5 d ago modified 2026-11-03 5 d ago

cvss
8.2
version 3.1, OSV
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
—
no score, EPSS covers CVEs only
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

# Out-of-bounds read in Eq and Ord on numbers with extreme exponents

`scientific-0.3.9.0` reimplemented `Eq` and `Ord` without normalising their arguments. The new implementation short-circuits on `integerLog10' c + e` computed in `Int`, which overflows when the base-10 exponent is close to `maxBound :: Int`. The overflowed comparison then falls through to `magnitude (e1 - e2)`, where the exponent difference overflows to a negative `Int` as well. `magnitude` indexed its cached power-of-ten array without a bounds check, so the negative index performed an out-of-bounds read and the process died with `SIGSEGV`.

With `scientific-0.3.9.0` (GHC 9.10.3, x86_64-linux), as reported in [basvandijk/scientific#120](https://github.com/basvandijk/scientific/issues/120):

```haskell import Data.Scientific

main :: IO () main = print (scientific 10 maxBound == scientific 1 minBound) ```

``` $ ./repro; echo "exit=$?" exit=139 ```

The issue was discovered when Stackage nightly test suites (`genvalidity-hspec-aeson`, `genvalidity-sydtest-aeson`) started segfaulting after upgrading to `scientific-0.3.9.0`: their property tests round-trip `aeson` `Value`s, which produces `Scientific`s with extreme exponents.

Versions before `0.3.9.0` did not crash, but `Eq`/`Ord` returned invalid results there instead (the normalisation-based implementation overflows the exponent, reporting `scientific 10 maxBound == scientific 1 minBound` as `True`). The same unchecked read was also reachable through `(+)` and `(-)` on older versions, guarded only by the documented warning about the potential `10^e` blowup — reading outside the cache is not.

## Resolution

`scientific-0.3.10.0` computes the logarithms using `Integer`, fixing both the crash and the invalid comparison results, and bounds-checks `magnitude`, so a negative exponent now raises an error instead of reading out of bounds. All entry points (`Eq`, `Ord`, `(+)`, `(-)`) are covered; upgrade to `scientific-0.3.10.0` or later.

Note that printing values with exponents close to `maxBound :: Int` remains unreliable due to the inherent `Int` exponent overflow in `normalize`; this limitation is documented upstream and postponed to the next major release.

## Credits

Reported by Tom Sydney Kerckhove (@NorfairKing); fixed by Oleg Grenrus (@phadej).

Patch / fix

  • hackage scientific 0.3.10.0

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
OSV 3.1 8.2 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
hackage scientific
>=0.3.9.0, <0.3.10.0
0.3.10.0

References

Sources

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