VeraCrypt: Heap overflow and out-of-bounds read in Serializable deserialization (elevated Core service input path)

Overview

VeraCrypt provides disk encryption with strong security based on TrueCrypt. Prior to 1.26.30, the Unix, macOS, and FreeBSD serialization paths in src/Platform/Serializer.cpp and src/Volume/VolumePassword.cpp accept untrusted length and count values when deserializing data that can cross from the unprivileged GUI or CLI to the root CoreService helper. Serializer::DeserializeWString allocates floor(size / sizeof(wchar_t)) elements but reads size bytes, so a non-aligned size can overflow the heap allocation. VolumePassword::Deserialize accepts PasswordSize values larger than the fixed 128-byte PasswordBuffer, allowing downstream DataPtr() and Size() consumers such as the KDF to read beyond the buffer. DeserializeString, DeserializeWString, and the string and wide-string list readers also lack allocation and collection bounds, which can exhaust memory, and a zero-length DeserializeString can access an empty vector. Windows uses a different path, and the immediate CoreService pipe writer is the same-user parent process, so the documented exposure is a local defense-in-depth boundary rather than a remote attack. This issue is fixed in 1.26.30.

Affected

• VeraCrypt < 1.26.30

Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.