What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-53794: rsync < 3.5.0 Denial of Service via --max-alloc=0 Logic Error

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.3 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-08-13 · updated 2026-10-24
• Weakness: CWE-1284

Description

rsync before 3.5.0 contains a logic error in --max-alloc handling that allows a sender or configuration setting --max-alloc=0 to disable allocation sanity checks entirely rather than enforcing a zero-byte cap. Attackers can exploit this flaw to cause the receiver to attempt unbounded memory allocations for file list and data structures, potentially exhausting available memory and causing a denial of service.

Affected products

• RsyncProject rsync: through 3.4.4

References

• https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/releases/tag/v3.5.0
• https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/security/advisories/GHSA-p827-vwcp-m964
• https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/rsync-denial-of-service-via-max-alloc-0-logic-error

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