CVE-2026-34942 — Wasmtime panics when transcoding misaligned utf-16 strings

Wasmtime is a runtime for WebAssembly. Prior to 24.0.7, 36.0.7, 42.0.2, and 43.0.1, Wasmtime's implementation of transcoding strings into the Component Model's utf16 or latin1+utf16 encodings improperly verified the alignment of reallocated strings. This meant that unaligned pointers could be passed to the host for transcoding which would trigger a host panic. This panic is possible to trigger from malicious guests which transfer very specific strings across components with specific addresses. Host panics are considered a DoS vector in Wasmtime as the panic conditions are controlled by the guest in this situation. This vulnerability is fixed in 24.0.7, 36.0.7, 42.0.2, and 43.0.1.

Published Apr 9, 2026Updated Apr 9, 2026Sources: cvelistV5, GitHub_M

Triage

Is it exploited, how likely is exploitation, what does it touch, and how severe do the scoring sources call it.

Exploitation

Unreported

no source claims exploitation

EPSS

chance of exploitation in 30 days

Affects

bytecodealliance

wasmtime

CVSS base

5.9

MEDIUM

CISA SSVC assessment

Three decision points CISA publishes for the CVEs it assesses · SSVC 2.0.3. A stakeholder decision, not a severity score.

CISA

Exploitation

None

none · proof-of-concept · active

Automatable

can an attacker script all four kill-chain steps

Technical impact

Partial

partial · total control of the vulnerable component

Affected scope

The catalog records vendors and products as separate lists, not pairs, so which product belongs to which vendor is not something this page can say.

Vendors (1)

bytecodealliance

Products (1)

wasmtime

Every base score collected

Sources score independently and disagree; each row says who scored it and under which version.

Score	Version	Severity	Expl.	Impact	Source
5.9	CVSS 4.0	MEDIUM	—	—	cvelistV5

Weakness & attack patterns

CWE-129

References

1 on the record

github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime/security/advisories/GHSA-jxhv-7h78-9775
x_refsource_CONFIRM

Elsewhere on this site

bytecodeallianceevery CVE for this vendor
CWE-129other pages naming this weakness

Not in any source we poll

Listed rather than left blank: an empty field and an unmeasured one look identical on screen, and only one is a reason to look elsewhere.

No confirmed IOCs, IP addresses, domains, file hashes, or malware artifacts supplied.
No organization-specific asset inventory, compensating-control status, or patch deployment evidence supplied.
No exploit packet captures, log samples, or incident case IDs supplied.