CVE-2026-54073 (GCVE-0-2026-54073)
Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-08-21 18:51 – Updated: 2026-08-21 19:32
VLAI
EPSS
VEX
Title
VeraCrypt: Hidden volume quick format weakens plausible deniability
Summary
VeraCrypt provides disk encryption with strong security based on TrueCrypt. From 1.26.6 until 1.26.29, file-hosted hidden volume creation forces quick format and the FormatNoFs function in src/Common/Format.c and FormatFat function in src/Common/Fat.c use WriteFile to place raw zeroed sectors at predictable 128 MiB intervals. These writes bypass the normal EncryptDataUnits formatting path, leaving deterministic plaintext markers in an area expected to resemble random ciphertext. The markers can weaken plausible deniability during forensic inspection, although they do not disclose hidden-volume content or reduce the strength of VeraCrypt encryption. This issue is fixed in version 1.26.29.
Severity
SSVC
Exploitation: poc
Automatable: no
Technical Impact: partial
CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)
Decision recorded 2026-08-21 19:32 UTC
CWE
- CWE-693 - Protection Mechanism Failure
Assigner
References
3 references
| URL | Tags |
|---|---|
| https://github.com/veracrypt/VeraCrypt/security/a… | x_refsource_CONFIRM |
| https://github.com/veracrypt/VeraCrypt/commit/689… | x_refsource_MISC |
| https://github.com/veracrypt/VeraCrypt/releases/t… | x_refsource_MISC |
Impacted products
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Experimental. This forecast is provided for visualization only and may change without notice. Do not use it for operational decisions.
Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.
Sightings
| Author | Source | Type | Date | Other |
|---|
Nomenclature
- Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
- Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
- Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
- Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
- Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
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The MITRE ATT&CK techniques below are AI-generated suggestions, inferred from the description of the
vulnerability by the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-classification-roberta-base
model, served locally by ML-Gateway.
They have not been verified by an analyst and are provided for guidance only.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
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