RUSTSEC-2026-0235: Insufficient archive validation can cause out-of-bounds reads in archives containing Rc/Arc
1 affectedShared pointer validation keyed already-validated pointees by their address and
type, but did not include pointer metadata. For unsized pointees, an archive
could therefore contain multiple Rc, Arc, or weak pointers that shared a
data address but used different metadata, such as different slice lengths.
Once the first pointer had been validated, later pointers to the same address
skipped pointee validation. The safe checked rkyv::access API could
consequently return a slice with a forged length, allowing safe indexing to
read out of bounds. The same validation bypass was reachable through checked
deserialization with rkyv::from_bytes.
Version 0.8.17 includes pointer metadata in shared pointer validation and rejects conflicting metadata. The 0.7 series is also affected but is no longer supported by upstream. Users who process untrusted archives should upgrade to 0.8.17 or later.