CVE-2026-76192

Executive Summary

CVE-2026-76192 is a NULL pointer dereference (CWE-476) in InDesign Desktop that allows an attacker to crash the application, producing a denial-of-service condition on the local host. The vulnerability requires user interaction: a victim must open a malicious file with the affected InDesign build. Impact is limited to availability (CVSS 5.5, A:H) with no confidentiality or integrity loss, and no public proof-of-concept, exploit code, or Nuclei template is known at this time.

Technical Analysis

The NVD description identifies the flaw class explicitly: a NULL pointer dereference in InDesign Desktop. In CWE-476 terms, this means the application follows a pointer that resolves to address zero (or a low invalid address) and dereferences it without a validity check. Practically, this occurs when code assumes a value, object, handle, or reference will be non-null — for example, when parsing a malformed or truncated structure inside an opened document — and the parser proceeds to read or write through that null reference. The result on modern operating systems is an access violation (Windows: exception code 0xC0000005, "read of address 0x00000000") that is not caught, terminating the process.

No technical detail is available from the supplied data regarding the specific parsing subsystem involved, the file format elements that trigger the fault, the memory allocation path, or the exact pointer chain. This report therefore describes the vulnerability strictly at the class level and does not attribute behavior to specific functions, modules, or file paths that are not present in the source description.

Attack surface characteristics:

• Local/adjacent vector (AV:L): the attack is not delivered over the network directly to the InDesign process; a file or document must be delivered to and opened by the user. This maps to the "open a malicious file" requirement in the description.
• Low attack complexity (AC:L): no race condition, no special environment precondition, and no authentication material is described; the crash follows deterministically from opening the crafted input.
• No privileges required (PR:N): the attacker does not need any credential or account on the target to craft the file.
• User interaction required (UI:R): the entire exploitation flow depends on the victim opening the document.
• Availability-only impact (C:N/I:N/A:H): the described outcome is termination of the application. Nothing in the description indicates memory corruption exploitable for code execution, data exfiltration, or file modification — a NULL pointer dereference terminates rather than corrupts in the general case, and no evidence in the supplied data suggests otherwise.

The relevant vulnerability class is well understood and frequently reported in document-processing and graphics-layout applications, which routinely parse complex, nested, attacker-controllable file structures. Such parsers are a common source of unvalidated pointer use, integer-overflow-derived null allocations, and error-path omissions where a lookup returns "not found" (null) and the caller does not branch on that result.

Exploitation Scenarios

No public proof-of-concept is available; the attack chain below is inferred from the vulnerability class (CWE-476) and the described precondition (victim opens a malicious file). No specific function names, file format field names, or code constructs are asserted because none are provided in the source data.

1) Reconnaissance / target identification The attacker identifies targets who routinely open externally supplied InDesign documents — design agencies, marketing departments, print and prepress shops, publishing houses, and any enterprise function that ingests customer-supplied artwork, templates, or vendor-supplied layout files. Identification is opportunistic: no fingerprinting of the InDesign binary is required, since the flaw is present in the affected build by definition. An attacker may also exploit the trust relationship itself, targeting users whose documented workflow is "open the file the client sent."

2) Triggering the specific flaw class The attacker crafts a document that reaches the vulnerable code path and causes a required reference to remain null while the parser continues. At the CWE-476 class level, this typically means presenting input that makes an internal lookup, allocation, or structure-resolution step return null — for example a truncated, structurally inconsistent, or internally contradictory file that passes earlier validation stages but fails a later one whose failure is not checked. The attacker's objective is not to control memory but to reach an unchecked dereference. No details of the exact malformed structure are available from the source data.

3) Payload / execution method at the vulnerability-class level Delivery is file-based. The malicious InDesign document is transported via the standard channels used for design-asset exchange: email attachment, shared network or cloud drive, file-sharing link, project-management or proofing portal upload, or physical/shared storage media. The final step is the user opening the document in the affected InDesign build. No network-facing service is exploited; no authentication is bypassed; there is no server-side component described. Social engineering — naming the file as an urgent client deliverable, a revised proof, or a vendor template — is the delivery mechanism that satisfies the user-interaction requirement.

4) Post-exploitation impact The described impact is application denial-of-service. On successful trigger, InDesign terminates (crash), and any unsaved work in the session is lost. The fault is local to the user's host; there is no described lateral movement, no persistence, no code execution, and no data disclosure. In an aggregated case — a shared template or a widely distributed file opened by many designers — the outcome scales to workflow disruption across a team rather than to a single workstation. Because the crash is availability-only, the security value of the vulnerability is primarily disruptive and, in targeted operations, potentially useful as a low-noise nuisance or as a stressor against a specific individual or team.

Impact Assessment

• Confidentiality (C:N): No disclosure of data is described.
• Integrity (I:N): No modification of data is described. Loss of unsaved work is an availability/operational consequence of the crash, not an integrity compromise of stored data by the attacker.
• Availability (A:H): The application is rendered unusable on the affected host each time the malicious file is opened; the effect is reproducible for as long as the file is retained.
• Attack Vector (AV:L) / UI:R: Exploitation is contingent on local file delivery plus deliberate user action, which materially limits blast radius compared with a network-facing, unauthenticated flaw.
• Scope (S:U): The impact is confined to the InDesign process and its host; no described effect on other components.

Business impact: For a design or publishing organization, a single crash event means lost in-progress layout work and a broken handoff. Repeated or widely distributed triggering of the flaw can cause repeated work loss, deadline slippage, and support burden. Because the trigger file may arrive through ordinary business channels (client deliverables, vendor templates), the operational cost is real even though the technical severity is moderate. There is no described path to credential theft, ransomware staging, or data exfiltration via this flaw alone; it should be triaged as an availability and workflow-continuity risk rather than a compromise risk.

Affected systems: Installations of InDesign Desktop on which the vulnerable build is present. Exact version boundaries are unknown — no affected version range was supplied by any tracked source — so asset owners must inventory InDesign installations and confirm build levels directly with the vendor's advisory.

Detection Guidance

Detection for an availability-only local crash is largely host-based: process termination events correlated with document-open activity, plus crash-handler telemetry. Network detection is limited to delivery of the malicious document, which will generally be indistinguishable from legitimate design-file transfer. The rules below are built to the vulnerability class and to generic InDesign crash/termination telemetry; they do not depend on exploit-specific artifacts, because none are published.

Sigma Rule

title: Potential InDesign Desktop NULL Pointer Dereference Crash (CVE-2026-76192)
id: 9f2a1c47-5b3e-4d81-a6c2-0e7d4b91f3aa
status: experimental
description: Detects abnormal termination of InDesign Desktop consistent with an application crash triggered by opening a crafted document (CWE-476).
references:
  - https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-76192
author: valtersit.com
date: 2026-01-01
logsource:
  product: windows
  category: application
detection:
  selection_process:
    Image|endswith:
      - '\InDesign.exe'
  selection_crash:
    EventID: 1000
    Provider_Name: 'Application Error'
  selection_fault:
    Data|contains:
      - 'InDesign.exe'
      - 'c0000005'
  condition: selection_process and selection_crash and selection_fault
fields:
  - Image
  - EventID
  - Data
falsepositives:
  - Legitimate application crashes unrelated to malicious files
  - Plugin or font-related faults in InDesign
level: low
tags:
  - attack.t1204.002
  - cve.2026.76192
  - cwe.476

YARA Rule

rule CVE_2026_76192_InDesign_NullDeref_CrashFile
{
    meta:
        description = "Heuristic detection of InDesign document files likely to trigger a NULL pointer dereference crash (CVE-2026-76192 / CWE-476)."
        author = "valtersit.com"
        reference = "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-76192"
        date = "2026-01-01"
        severity = "medium"

    strings:
        $indd = { 06 06 ED F5 D8 1D 46 E5 BD 31 EF E7 FE 74 B7 1D }
        $idml_a = "<?xml" ascii
        $idml_b = "designmap" ascii
        $idml_c = "Document" ascii

    condition:
        (uint16(0) == 0x0606 or $indd at 0) and
        filesize < 50MB
}

Note: Documents in this class are typically ZIP/XML or vendor-binary containers; the rule above is a heuristic file-type filter to scope scanning, not a signature for the specific malformed structure, which is not publicly documented.

Suricata IDS Rule

alert smtp any any -> $HOME_NET any ( \
  msg:"CVE-2026-76192 - Possible InDesign malicious document delivered via email attachment"; \
  flow:established,to_client; \
  fileext:"indd"; \
  filestore; \
  sid:202676192; \
  rev:1; \
  reference:cve,2026-76192; \
  reference:url,nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-76192; \
  classtype:attempted-dos; \
  metadata:created_at 2026_01_01, updated_at 2026_01_01; )

Note: There is no exploitable network protocol for this vulnerability. This rule only surfaces inbound delivery of the document type associated with the attack chain and will produce false positives for all legitimate design-file mail.

Elastic Detection

sequence by host.name
  [process where event.type == "start" and process.name : "InDesign.exe"]
  [process where event.type == "end" and process.name : "InDesign.exe" and
     (process.exit_code != 0 or process.exit_code == null)]

Splunk SPL Query

index=windows source="XmlWinEventLog:Application" EventCode=1000 Provider_Name="Application Error"
| search Message="InDesign.exe" (Message="c0000005" OR Message="0x00000000" OR Message="access violation")
| stats count min(_time) as first_seen max(_time) as last_seen values(Message) as details by host
| where count >= 1
| convert ctime(first_seen) ctime(last_seen)

Wazuh OSSEC Rule

<group name="windows,application_crash,cve_2026_76192,">
  <rule id="2026761" level="6">
    <if_sid>60000</if_sid>
    <field name="win.system.providerName">Application Error</field>
    <field name="win.system.eventID">1000</field>
    <match>InDesign.exe</match>
    <description>InDesign Desktop (InDesign.exe) application crash detected - possible CVE-2026-76192 NULL pointer dereference denial-of-service.</description>
    <mitre>
      <id>T1204.002</id>
    </mitre>
    <group>cve_2026_76192,denial_of_service,</group>
  </rule>
</group>

Mitigation & Patch Guidance

Patch confidence: 0/4 — UNPATCHED (no patch evidence from any tracked source). Vendor fix: N/A. Workarounds: N/A. Affected versions: none enumerated.

1) Immediate mitigations (no vendor patch available)

• Treat inbound InDesign documents from untrusted or unverified sources as hazardous; require provenance confirmation before opening client-, vendor-, or third-party-supplied files.
• Open untrusted design documents in an isolated environment — a dedicated low-privilege VM, sandboxed workstation, or disposable analysis host — so a crash cannot interrupt production work or destroy an in-progress layout on a business-critical machine.
• Enable InDesign autosave/auto-recovery and enforce frequent saves on any host that must open external design files, to reduce work loss from an unexpected termination.
• Restrict the file types accepted through mail gateways and collaboration portals where feasible, and detach/scan attachments in a sandbox before user delivery.
• Funnel untrusted documents through a preview/conversion service or a dedicated ingestion seat rather than distributing them to all designers.

2) Patch / upgrade steps

• Monitor Adobe's security bulletin channel for InDesign advisories referencing CVE-2026-76192. No fixed version has been published in any tracked source as of this report.
• Inventory InDesign Desktop installations across the estate and record exact build numbers so that patched builds can be identified and deployed the moment a fix is released.
• When a vendor fix is published, prioritize upgrade on hosts and teams that routinely open externally sourced documents (design, marketing, prepress, publishing).

3) Long-term hardening

• Establish a formal untrusted-document intake procedure: sandbox detonation, provenance verification, and a single controlled seat for first-open of externally supplied artwork.
• Deploy endpoint crash telemetry (Windows Application Error 1000, WER, third-party EDR process-termination detection) and alert on repeated InDesign terminations, which are the primary observable signal for this class of flaw.
• Keep design-suite software within current vendor-supported builds as a standing policy; document-parsing applications require continuous maintenance.
• Maintain tested offline and versioned backups of in-progress creative work to bound the availability cost of any denial-of-service-class flaw in the design toolchain.
• Enforce email and web gateways with file-type policy and sandbox detonation to reduce the ease of delivery for weaponized design files.

References

1. NVD — CVE-2026-76192: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-76192
2. CWE-476: NULL Pointer Dereference — MITRE: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/476.html
3. Adobe Security Bulletins and Advisories (InDesign fixes published here): https://helpx.adobe.com/security.html
4. CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog (CVE-2026-76192 is not listed): https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog
5. FIRST EPSS (no score currently assigned for CVE-2026-76192): https://www.first.org/epss/

Threat actor campaigns / exploit-in-the-wild: none reported. No public proof-of-concept, exploit code, or Nuclei template exists for CVE-2026-76192 according to the supplied intelligence, and the vulnerability is not in CISA KEV.