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Quill has unbounded memory allocation via unvalidated size fields in Mach-O binary parsing

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Mar 10, 2026 in anchore/quill • Updated Mar 11, 2026

Package

gomod github.com/anchore/quill (Go)

Affected versions

< 0.7.1

Patched versions

0.7.1

Description

Impact

Quill before version v0.7.1 contains an unbounded memory allocation vulnerability when parsing Mach-O binaries. Exploitation requires that Quill processes an attacker-supplied Mach-O binary, which is most likely in environments such as CI/CD pipelines, shared signing services, or any workflow where externally-submitted binaries are accepted for signing.

When parsing a Mach-O binary, Quill reads several size and count fields from the LC_CODE_SIGNATURE load command and embedded code signing structures (SuperBlob, BlobIndex) and uses them to allocate memory buffers without validating that the values are reasonable or consistent with the actual file size. Affected fields include DataSize, DataOffset, and Size from the load command, Count from the SuperBlob header, and Length from individual blob headers. An attacker can craft a minimal (~4KB) malicious Mach-O binary with extremely large values in these fields, causing Quill to attempt to allocate excessive memory. This leads to memory exhaustion and denial of service, potentially crashing the host process. Both the Quill CLI and Go library are affected when used to parse untrusted Mach-O files.

Patches

Fixed in Quill v0.7.1

Workarounds

None

Credit

Anchore would like to thank opera-aklajn (Opera) for reporting this vulnerability

Resources

References

@wagoodman wagoodman published to anchore/quill Mar 10, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Mar 11, 2026
Reviewed Mar 11, 2026
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Mar 11, 2026
Last updated Mar 11, 2026

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Local
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS score

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

This score estimates the probability of this vulnerability being exploited within the next 30 days. Data provided by FIRST.
(2nd percentile)

Weaknesses

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

The product allocates a reusable resource or group of resources on behalf of an actor without imposing any intended restrictions on the size or number of resources that can be allocated. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2026-31961

GHSA ID

GHSA-xj69-m9qq-8m94

Source code

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