Medium severity · published Jul 24, 2026
CVE-2026-56392
Heap-based Buffer Overflow in GNU coreutils
6.1
CVSS
0.2%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
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
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
Low
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.2% · higher than 8% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
CO
coreutils · GNU
through 9.11 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-56392
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-56392
Third Party Advisory
https://cert.pl/en/posts/2026/07/CVE-2026-56391
Product
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/
Patch
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/commit/?id=b60a159fdc5bfcf9988d3a4cb6f53abe8ad5d35d
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