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TI-2026-38886 Aliases CVE-2026-53910GHSA-9pwr-gcwm-8wj5

Heap-based Buffer Overflow in GNU diffutils

Priority LOW 11CWE-190Published · Updated

Key facts

Attack vector
Local
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Attack complexity
Low
Attack requirements
Present
Impact type
—
Confidentiality · integrity · availability
None · Low · Low
Fix status
Partial Red Hat: 1 fixed, 7 without a fix

Attack profile from CVSS 4.0 · CNA. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.

Summary

diff3 tool from GNU diffutils is vulnerable to a heap‑based buffer overflow due to multiple signed integer overflows in line‑mapping calculations. Incorrect arithmetic in mapping line ranges can result in corrupted values being used for memory allocation and loop bounds. When processing crafted diff output, these overflows may cause the application to allocate insufficient memory and subsequently perform out‑of‑bounds writes during internal processing.  An attacker who can control the output of the diff program used by diff3 (e.g. via --diff-program pointing to a malicious script) can trigger out-of-bounds writes, resulting in a crash and potentially remote code execution depending on the environment. This issue has been fixed in commit 9ff04d5b84743e331e80b589335a52c5480d1815  NOTE: The project maintainers claim that this is not a security issue. They state that the worst outcome this issue can cause is a crash of diff and that it cannot be used to escalate privileges.

Why it matters now

Exploitation None reported CISA SSVC · not in CISA KEV
EPSS 0.00291 21st percentileScored 2026-11-07
Fix Partial Red Hat: 1 advisoryRed Hat: 1 fixed, 7 without a fix

SSVC decision points

CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3

Exploitation
None
Automatable
No
Technical impact
Partial

The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.

Affected products

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
GNUdiffutilsup to 3.12—No fix listedCNA
  • diffutils VendorGNU Affected up to 3.12 Fixed in — No fix listed CNA

Remediation

Red Hat 1 advisory

  • RHSA-2026:45327 Released 2026-07-24 · Red Hat rating Low
    Red Hat Hardened Images RPMs Security Update
    • Red Hat Hardened Images diffutils-3.12-6.1.hum1@aarch64, diffutils-3.12-6.1.hum1@src, diffutils-3.12-6.1.hum1@x86_64

Vendor assessments

Red Hat

Red Hat rating: Low. Red Hat's page for this CVE →

ProductStatusPlan or fix
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Red Hat Hardened ImagesFixed RHSA-2026:45327

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-53910
  2. 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-9pwr-gcwm-8wj5
  3. 2026-11-07 Affected versions changed · Red Hat

References

Patch 2

Advisory 1

Other 1

  • TI-2026-19388 telnetd in GNU Inetutils through 2.7 allows remote authentication bypass via a "-f root"… KEVCVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
  • TI-2014-05975 GNU Bash through 4.3 bash43-025 processes trailing strings after certain malformed… KEVCVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
  • TI-2014-05157 GNU Bash through 4.3 processes trailing strings after function definitions in the values… KEVCVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
  • TI-2014-05164 GNU Bash through 4.3 bash43-026 does not properly parse function definitions in the… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2023-04522 Glibc: buffer overflow in ld.so leading to privilege escalation KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 7.8
  • TI-2009-03392 The TLS protocol, and the SSL protocol 3.0 and possibly earlier, as used in Microsoft… CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
See all 1272 →

Sources

This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences