diff --git a/gst/gstdatetime.c b/gst/gstdatetime.c
index 8c0eda5..b947f4f 100644
--- a/gst/gstdatetime.c
+++ b/gst/gstdatetime.c
@@ -853,7 +853,7 @@ gst_date_time_new_from_iso8601_string (const gchar * string)
     else if (neg_pos)
       pos = neg_pos + 1;
 
-    if (pos) {
+    if (pos && strlen (pos) >= 3) {
       gint ret_tz;
       if (pos[2] == ':')
         ret_tz = sscanf (pos, "%d:%d", &gmt_offset_hour, &gmt_offset_min);
diff --git a/tests/check/gst/gstdatetime.c b/tests/check/gst/gstdatetime.c
index eb637c4..29f42fb 100644
--- a/tests/check/gst/gstdatetime.c
+++ b/tests/check/gst/gstdatetime.c
@@ -649,6 +649,14 @@ GST_START_TEST (test_GstDateTime_to_g_date_time)
 
   fail_unless (g_date_time_compare (gdt1, gdt2) == 0);
 
+  /* some bogus ones, make copy to detect out of bound read in valgrind/asan */
+  {
+    gchar *s = g_strdup ("0002000000T00000:00+0");
+    dt = gst_date_time_new_from_iso8601_string (s);
+    gst_date_time_unref (dt);
+    g_free (s);
+  }
+
   g_date_time_unref (gdt1);
   g_date_time_unref (gdt2);
   gst_date_time_unref (dt);