liboqs is a C-language cryptographic library that provides implementations of post-quantum cryptography algorithms. Prior to 0.16.0, OQS_KEM_encaps_derand can dereference an uninitialized encaps_derand function pointer when called on NTRU-HPS-2048-509, NTRU-HPS-2048-677, NTRU-HPS-4096-821, NTRU-HPS-4096-1229, NTRU-HRSS-701, or NTRU-HRSS-1373. The affected NTRU constructors omit the OQS_KEM.encaps_derand member because those schemes do not support derandomized encapsulation, OQS_KEM objects are allocated without zero initialization, and the wrapper in src/kem/kem.c checks only that the OQS_KEM pointer is non-null before calling through the residual heap value. An application is affected only if it instantiates one of those six NTRU KEMs and invokes OQS_KEM_encaps_derand on it. The supported impact is a calling-process crash and denial of service. This issue is fixed in version 0.16.0.
Severity
CVSS 3.1
5.3 medium
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
EPSS
0.3% estimated probability of exploitation activity in the next 30 days; 23rd percentile. Scored 2026-11-10. A forecast for this CVE across the internet, not for your own systems.
CISA's assessment (SSVC)
Exploitation: none · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial, assessed 2026-11-09. From CISA's Vulnrichment in the CVE List: whether it is exploited, whether exploiting it can be automated, and how much control it gives.
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