CVE-2026-72712: Nmap 7.99 Denial of Service via Zero-Length TCP Option Packet

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 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: 2026-08-11 · updated 2026-10-24
Weakness: CWE-835

Description

Nmap versions up to and including 7.99 contains a denial of service vulnerability that allows remote attackers to crash the application by sending a crafted packet containing a zero-length TCP option. The malformed packet forces the Packet:parse_options() function in nselib/packet.lua to allocate objects in an infinite loop, causing an out-of-memory condition that results in application crash.

Affected products

Nmap Project Nmap: through 7.99

References

https://github.com/nmap/nmap
https://github.com/nmap/nmap/commit/7ef4ee030a0023fe22616387a000032e1a678b6a
https://github.com/nmap/nmap/issues/3368
https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nmap-denial-of-service-via-zero-length-tcp-option-packet
https://github.com/nmap/nmap/issues/3368

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