CVE-2026-126398vllm-project vllm reachable assertion
CVE-2026-126398 is a reachable assertion in vllm-project vllm, rated high (8.2 on CVSS 4.0).
Why this priority: High severity, with no exploitation signal yet.
Published · Updated · NVD status: Awaiting Analysis
What it is
Input can trigger an assertion that stops the process.
How it is reached
An attacker can exploit it over the network, without an account, and nobody has to click anything. Success also depends on conditions the attacker does not fully control.
What an attacker gains
A successful attack can take it offline. In practice, this kind of flaw lets an attacker exhaust CPU, memory or connections until the service stops answering.
Is it being exploited?
There is no public report of exploitation yet. EPSS estimates a 0.49% chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days, higher than 43% of scored CVEs.
What to do
- Upgrade vllm-project vllm to 0.30.0 or later.
- Until it is patched, keep it off the internet or behind a VPN, allowlist or authenticating proxy.
Description from NVD
vLLM from 0.28.0 before 0.30.0 contains a reachable assertion vulnerability in GPUModelRunner._init_xdrope_positions that allows remote attackers to crash the engine by submitting embeddings-only requests. Attackers can send a /v1/completions request containing only prompt_embeds to XD-RoPE models with --enable-prompt-embeds, terminating the EngineCore and API server for all clients.
What this means for your architecture.
A CVE names a product. Whether it matters depends on where that product sits in your systems: what reaches it, which trust boundary it guards and what it can reach once compromised. Veriom maps your components, their relationships and your trust boundaries from your code, cloud and delivery evidence, so you can see where a component like this sits. The radar itself does not look at your systems.
Components it touches
- Public entry points and shared services that must stay up. The flaw sits between untrusted traffic and shared capacity.
Trust boundaries in play
- Internet-facing entry points. No account is needed. Any instance reachable from outside your perimeter, through a load balancer, gateway, VPN or exposed admin port, is in scope.
- Between untrusted traffic and shared capacity. An attacker who crosses it can exhaust CPU, memory or connections until the service stops answering.
Questions to answer about your own systems
- Where does vllm-project vllm run in your systems, and at which version?
- Which of those instances can be reached from the internet or partner networks?
- What can it reach once compromised: which data stores, secrets and services?
Sources
- CVE records and CVSS scores from the NVD CVE API. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
- Exploitation status from CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
- Exploit likelihood from FIRST’s Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), refreshed daily.
- Explanations are written by Veriom from fixed templates over each record’s data, not by a person reviewing each CVE. Descriptions are quoted from the records as published.