Asterisk: Possible RED T.140 Heap Buffer Overflow (CVE-2026-57198)
Published Last modified Sources: BSI, CVE.org
What is affected, what to do
Asterisk is an open source private branch exchange and telephony toolkit. In affected deployments, an authenticated attacker may cause a `T.140 RED` heap buffer overflow using carefully crafted packets, potentially allowing remote code execution or causing Asterisk to crash.
Update Asterisk to version 20.20.1, Asterisk Certified-asterisk to version 20.7-cert11.
- Affected
- Asterisk
gte 21.0.0-pre1, < 21.12.3..* - Asterisk
lt *..20.20.1 - Asterisk Certified-asterisk
gte 22.8-cert1-pre1, < 22.8-cert3..* - Asterisk Certified-asterisk
lt *..20.7-cert11
- Asterisk
- Fixed in
- Asterisk
20.20.1 - Asterisk Certified-asterisk
20.7-cert11
- Asterisk
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Metrics
2.3
Priority
XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.
Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v4
2.3
CVSS v4
Severity Low on the scale from 0 to 10.
Source: BSI, CVE.org
0.8 %
EPSS score
Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 57.4
Show all metrics
- Severity
- Low
Priority (0–325)
The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?
Read in glossary- 67.84 Methodology
Exploit maturity
An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.
Read in glossary- no public PoC known
XIEM Effective CVSS
XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.
Read in glossary- 2.3 Methodology
CVSS v4
CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.
Read in glossary- 2.3
EPSS score
The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.
Read in glossary- 0.8 %
- Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
EPSS percentile
The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.
Read in glossary- 57.4
- High — this CVE ranks above the median of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 36%).
KEV status
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- —
- Published
CWE
CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.
Read in glossary- CWE-122
Detection rules
No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.
Classification under NIS2 and CRA
Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.
NIS2
NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.
Read in glossary- Handle the vulnerability in regular vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2.
CRA
The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.
Read in glossary- From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.
Read in glossary- Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.
Description
Asterisk is an open source private branch exchange and telephony toolkit. In affected deployments, an authenticated attacker may cause a `T.140 RED` heap buffer overflow using carefully crafted packets, potentially allowing remote code execution or causing Asterisk to crash. The `chan_sip` channel driver must be installed and configured, and its `textsupport` option must be enabled; `textsupport` defaults to no. `The chan_sip driver was deprecated in Asterisk 20 and completely removed in all later versions.` Repository comparisons verify patch containment in Asterisk 20.20.1, 21.12.3, 22.10.1 and 23.4.1, and Certified Asterisk 20.7-cert11 and 22.8-cert3. The affected release-track scope remains unresolved: structured metadata includes later release tracks even though the advisory says the required `chan_sip` driver was removed there.
Source: BSI CSAF, BSI WID Portal, NVD (NIST), cvelistv5
Affected products
The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.
| Affected versions | Fixed in | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| asterisk | asterisk |
|
|
| asterisk | certified-asterisk |
|
|
| Open Source | Asterisk |
|
|
Vendors and products
Weakness classes (CWE)
CWE-122Heap-based Buffer Overflow
Variant
A heap overflow condition is a buffer overflow, where the buffer that can be overwritten is allocated in the heap portion of memory, generally meaning that the buffer was allocated using a routine such as malloc().
Entry at MITRE CWE-122
References & sources
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/commit/0601c33d4edf8c8f221de91cead59460fb1e71…x_refsource_MISC
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/commit/111487298a954a029daae941eac423f0609b12…x_refsource_MISC
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/commit/536218a86b797996e8e8844deacc8207de3737…x_refsource_MISC
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/commit/a89b61d7c756f816c7fa5327ead9e889f15312…x_refsource_MISC
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/commit/eaa108c68a32c080d7a168ef1d8bf784d5d830…x_refsource_MISC
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/commit/eef894282be203cb9e6d8e9692e9c360a0b569…x_refsource_MISC
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/commit/fde69a1f3ff17f507a1578ae27b528f43ceb5e…x_refsource_MISC
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/releases/tag/20.20.1x_refsource_MISC
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/releases/tag/21.12.3x_refsource_MISC
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/releases/tag/22.10.1x_refsource_MISC
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/releases/tag/23.4.1x_refsource_MISC
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/releases/tag/certified-20.7-cert11x_refsource_MISC
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/releases/tag/certified-22.8-cert3x_refsource_MISC
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/security/advisories/GHSA-vfhr-r9x9-c687x_refsource_CONFIRM
- github.comasterisk/asterisk/tree/24.0.0-pre1x_refsource_MISC
Changes to this CVE
Who changed this CVE and when: NVD (analysis, affected products, CVSS), the CVE publisher (CNA) and additional providers such as CISA (ADP).
ReceivedGitHub
CVSS V4.0: AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Weakness type: CWE-122
Description added or changed
New references:- https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/commit/0601c33d4edf8c8f221de91cead59460fb1e7180
- https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/commit/111487298a954a029daae941eac423f0609b1261
- https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/commit/536218a86b797996e8e8844deacc8207de373701
- https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/commit/a89b61d7c756f816c7fa5327ead9e889f1531202
and 8 more references
Show 19 original changes
Individual changes of this event as published by NVD Type Action Before After Description added —Asterisk is an open source private branch exchange and telephony toolkit. In affected deployments, an authenticated attacker may cause a `T.140 RED` heap buffer overflow using carefully crafted packets, potentially allowing remote code execution or causing Asterisk to crash. The `chan_sip` channel driver must be installed and configured, and its `textsupport` option must be enabled; `textsupport` defaults to no. `The chan_sip driver was deprecated in Asterisk 20 and completely removed in all later versions.` Repository comparisons verify patch containment in Asterisk 20.20.1, 21.12.3, 22.10.1 and 23.4.1, and Certified Asterisk 20.7-cert11 and 22.8-cert3. The affected release-track scope remains unresolved: structured metadata includes later release tracks even though the advisory says the required `chan_sip` driver was removed there.CVSS added —AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:XWeakness type (CWE) added —CWE-122Affected versions (publisher) added —New affected value received. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/57xxx/CVE-2026-57198.json">CVE-2026-57198</a>Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/commit/0601c33d4edf8c8f221de91cead59460fb1e7180Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/commit/111487298a954a029daae941eac423f0609b1261Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/commit/536218a86b797996e8e8844deacc8207de373701Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/commit/a89b61d7c756f816c7fa5327ead9e889f1531202Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/commit/eaa108c68a32c080d7a168ef1d8bf784d5d830f4Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/commit/eef894282be203cb9e6d8e9692e9c360a0b569b4Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/commit/fde69a1f3ff17f507a1578ae27b528f43ceb5efdReference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/releases/tag/20.20.1Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/releases/tag/21.12.3Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/releases/tag/22.10.1Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/releases/tag/23.4.1Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/releases/tag/certified-20.7-cert11Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/releases/tag/certified-22.8-cert3Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/security/advisories/GHSA-vfhr-r9x9-c687Reference added —https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/tree/24.0.0-pre1Source identifier: security-advisories@github.com
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<a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2026-57198"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2026-57198.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2026-57198 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>