Vulnerability in GNU Gzip

CVE-2026-41992

GNU gzip contains a global buffer overflow vulnerability in the LZH decompression logic caused by improper reuse of shared global state between different decompression formats within a single execution. GNU gzip maintains a global array that is shared across the LZ77, LZW, and LZH decompression routines and is not reinitialized between files processed in the same invocation. By decompressing a specially crafted LZW file followed by a specially crafted LZH file in a single gzip -d command, an attacker can poison the shared global state and subsequently trigger an out‑of‑bounds read in the LZH decoder. The LZH decompression logic follows stale values left in the shared array, causing reads past the end of the allocated global buffer. This issue has been fixed in commits 63dbf6b3b9e6e781df1a6a64e609b10e23969681 and e7378c2d421be6a286922374425680bbe9ad8b7d.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.006 (44.7th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 45th percentile — 44.7% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-41992: held from 0.004 to 0.006.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.004 · newest: 0.006 · change: +0.001

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-41992?
CVE-2026-41992 is a high-severity vulnerability in GNU Gzip, classified under Buffer Over-read. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2026-06-29.
How severe is CVE-2026-41992?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.