Buffer overflow in GNU Coreutils

CVE-2026-56392

GNU coreutils unexpand is vulnerable to a heap-based buffer overflow due to an integer overflow during buffer allocation when processing large tab stop (-t) values. The multiplication used to calculate the allocation size can wrap around, resulting in an undersized buffer. When processing crafted input, subsequent writes exceed the allocated memory, leading to an out‑of‑bounds heap write. When running GNU coreutils unexpand with attacker-provided large tab stop (-t) arguments, this behavior leads to a crash and potentially achieve a heap write primitive depending on memory layout. This issue has been fixed in the commit b60a159fdc5bfcf9988d3a4cb6f53abe8ad5d35d

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

EPSS: 0.001 (4.2th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.1 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-56392?
CVE-2026-56392 is a medium-severity vulnerability in GNU Coreutils, classified under Heap-based Buffer Overflow. CVSS score: 6.1/10. Published 2026-07-24.
How severe is CVE-2026-56392?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.1 out of 10.