Vulnerability in GNU Cpio

CVE-2026-66485

GNU cpio is vulnerable to an uncontrolled memory allocation in the make_path function at src/makepath.c. The function uses alloca to allocate stack memory based on the length of argpath, which is derived from an archive-controlled pathname during extraction. A malicious cpio archive containing a sufficiently long nested pathname causes an unbounded stack allocation, resulting in a stack overflow and crash of the cpio process. An attacker who can supply a crafted cpio archive to a victim who extracts it can cause a denial of service. This issue has been fixed in commit 3cd514031371d8aeeaf2048aa10103e02831aaa9

Published · last modified .

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.001 (3.2th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 3rd percentile — 3.2% 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-2026-66485: held from 0.001 to 0.001.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.001 · newest: 0.001 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References