Critical severity · published May 25, 2026
CVE-2026-8376
Perl versions before 5.40.5-RC1, from 5.41.0 before 5.42.3-RC1, from 5.43.0 before 5.43.11 have a heap buffer overflow when compiling regular expressions with a repeated fixed string on 32-bit builds
9.8
CVSS
0.5%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Perl versions before 5.40.5-RC1, from 5.41.0 before 5.42.3-RC1, from 5.43.0 before 5.43.11 have a heap buffer overflow when compiling regular expressions with a repeated fixed string on 32-bit builds.
Perl_study_chunk in regcomp_study.c checked the size of the joined substring buffer in characters rather than bytes. For a quantified fixed substring with a large minimum count, the byte length mincount * l could overflow SSize_t, producing an undersized SvGROW allocation; the subsequent copy writes past the end of the buffer.
A caller that compiles an attacker-controlled regular expression on a 32-bit perl build triggers a heap buffer overflow at compile time.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.5% · higher than 42% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
PE
Perl · Perl
through 5.43.10 · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-8376
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-8376
Patch
https://github.com/Perl/perl5/commit/5e7f119eb2bb1181be908701f22bf7068e722f1c.patch
Mailing List
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/05/26/1
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