CVE-2026-56391

Publication date 24 July 2026

Last updated 25 August 2026


Ubuntu priority

Description

GNU coreutils uniq is vulnerable to an out‑of‑bounds read due to incorrect handling of multibyte input when the -w (--check-chars) option is used. The find_field() function miscalculates the byte length of characters by repeatedly processing a fixed pointer instead of advancing through the input, resulting in an inflated length value. This incorrect length is later used in a memcmp operation, causing reads beyond the allocated buffer when processing crafted multibyte input. When running GNU coreutils uniq with attacker-provided arguments, this behavior leads to a crash and potential adjacent heap memory exposure. This issue has been fixed in the commit d64e35a8a4c0e4608321433e0d84d917e4e36371.

Read the notes from the security team

Status

Package Ubuntu Release Status
coreutils 26.04 LTS resolute
Vulnerable
24.04 LTS noble
Not affected
22.04 LTS jammy
Not affected
20.04 LTS focal
Not affected
18.04 LTS bionic
Not affected
16.04 LTS xenial
Not affected
14.04 LTS trusty
Not affected

Notes


mdeslaur

issue was introduced in coreutils 9.5

Patch details

For informational purposes only. We recommend not to cherry-pick updates. How can I get the fixes?

Package Patch details
coreutils

Severity score breakdown

CVSS version: CVSS v4.0

Base score 4.6 · Medium

Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:L/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N


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