wasm2c in WebAssembly wabt through 1.0.41 allows sandbox escape in some situations that…
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Attack requirements
- Present
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · High · High
- Fix status
- No fix listed
Attack profile from CVSS 4.0 · CNA. Fix status from CNA.
Summary
wasm2c in WebAssembly wabt through 1.0.41 allows sandbox escape in some situations that primarily involve 32-bit platforms, aka a "table flip" attack. It does not check the return value of calloc() in wasm_rt_allocate_funcref_table() (wasm2c/wasm-rt-impl-tableops.inc). When the funcref table allocation fails, table->data is left NULL while table->size keeps the guest-declared element count; thus, bounds checks still pass and table element accesses resolve to absolute memory addresses (i * sizeof(wasm_rt_funcref_t)). This gives arbitrary read and write of host process memory and - via table.get, table.set, and call_indirect - arbitrary code execution, defeating the isolation that wasm2c exists to provide (a full sandbox escape). wasm2c is used as an in-process sandboxing boundary by RLBox and WasmBoxC, including in Firefox, which compiles the Graphite, Hunspell, Ogg, Expat, and Woff2 libraries via wasm2c to contain untrusted font, media, and XML input. Therefore, sandboxing in these applications is potentially affected. Exploitation requires the funcref table allocation to fail, for example under an address-space limit (RLIMIT_AS), on 32-bit hosts, with vm.overcommit_memory=2, or under memory pressure. On 64-bit Linux with default overcommit the allocation succeeds and the defect is not triggered. The wasm2c memory allocator aborts on calloc failure in the same runtime; the table allocator lacks this abort behavior. This was introduced in commit ab9e0b55 (PR #813).
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- Poc
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WebAssembly | wabt | up to 1.0.41 | — | No fix listed | CNA |
- wabt VendorWebAssembly Affected up to 1.0.41 Fixed in — No fix listed CNA
Remediation
No fixed version listed by the sources yet.
Vendor assessments
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-90648
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-7jjw-49wp-pr5h
- 2026-10-23 1 new reference · CNA
- 2026-11-06 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
- 2026-11-06 CVSS score added · Red Hat
References
More WebAssembly vulnerabilities
- TI-2023-15165 An issue in wasm2c 1.0.32, wasm2wat 1.0.32, wasm-decompile 1.0.32, and wasm-validate… CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2023-11934 WebAssembly v1.0.29 was discovered to contain a heap overflow via the component component wabt::Node::operator. CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.8
- TI-2022-21124 wasm-interp v1.0.29 was discovered to contain a heap overflow via the component… CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.8
- TI-2022-21123 wasm-interp v1.0.29 was discovered to contain an out-of-bounds read via the component… CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.1
- TI-2022-21125 wasm-interp v1.0.29 was discovered to contain an out-of-bounds read via the component… CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.1
- TI-2020-13374 Heap-buffer-overflow in /src/wasm/wasm-binary.cpp in… CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 6.5
Sources
- CVE-2026-90648 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-90648 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-7jjw-49wp-pr5h · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-90648 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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