Resource Exhaustion in MOOS-IvP pRealm via REALMCAST_REQ

MOOS-IvP pRealm, a component used in autonomous marine vehicle systems, contains a vulnerability (CVE-2026-85447) that allows for the exhaustion of system resources. The issue stems from the pRealm process accepting REALMCAST_REQ subscriptions without enforcing limits on the subscription duration or the number of variables requested.

An attacker with network access to the MOOS community can send a malformed or malicious REALMCAST_REQ message containing an unbounded duration or an excessively large variable list. By registering these long-lived pipeways, the attacker forces pRealm to process and generate output indefinitely. This unchecked resource consumption can lead to severe performance degradation or total service unavailability for the pRealm process, impacting the stability and operation of the MOOS-IvP environment. This vulnerability affects all versions up to and including 24.8.1.

Impact

Successful exploitation leads to a denial-of-service condition for the pRealm component. In the context of autonomous marine vehicles, this can compromise the ability of the system to process real-time environmental data or command-and-control telemetry, potentially causing critical system instability or operational failure.

Recommendation

Prioritized actions for security and engineering teams:

• Update MOOS-IvP to the latest version that contains a patch for CVE-2026-85447.
• Implement network-level segmentation to restrict access to the MOOS community communications, ensuring only trusted systems can submit subscription requests to pRealm.
• Monitor system-level resource usage for the pRealm process, specifically looking for sustained high CPU and memory utilization that aligns with periods of unusual network traffic.