Vulnerability in The GNU C Library Glibc

CVE-2026-8674

Initializing the DNS stub resolver from an /etc/resolv.conf file, or a LOCALDOMAIN environment variable, whose search list contains a domain of roughly 200 characters or more in the GNU C Library version 2.26 to 2.44 results in an assertion failure which aborts the process. The resolver truncates the search list when copying it into the fixed-size _res.defdname buffer, then asserts that the copy is consistent with the full configuration. The consistency check compared against the wrong size and did not handle a first entry that does not fit, so a correctly truncated list failed the assertion. Any process that resolves names through the library is affected, including long-running processes that reload /etc/resolv.conf on the next query after it changes. Search domains are commonly written to /etc/resolv.conf from data received over DHCP or from a VPN server, so an attacker on the local network may be able to trigger this without privileges on the target system, subject to validation by the network configuration software.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.3 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.003 (24.4th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 24th percentile — 24.4% 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-2026-8674: held from 0.003 to 0.003.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.003 · change: -0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-8674?
CVE-2026-8674 is a medium-severity vulnerability in The GNU C Library Glibc, classified under Reachable Assertion. CVSS score: 5.3/10. Published 2026-09-17.
How severe is CVE-2026-8674?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.3 out of 10.