CVE-2026-40468
Description
A flaw was found in gawk. An integer overflow vulnerability could allow a local attacker to cause memory exhaustion, leading to a denial of service. This flaw may also enable an attacker to corrupt gawk's internal memory, potentially leading to system instability.
Statement
Moderate: An integer overflow vulnerability in gawk's builtin.c could allow a local attacker to cause memory exhaustion and overwrite heap metadata. This could lead to system instability or a denial of service on affected Red Hat products, requiring local access to execute a malicious gawk script.
Mitigation
Do not execute untrusted awk scripts or process untrusted inputs that could trigger oversized calculations in builtin.c.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 4.4 | 9.1 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | Network | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | Low | N/A |
| Privileges Required | None | None | N/A |
| User Interaction | Required | None | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | Unchanged | N/A |
| Confidentiality | None | None | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | Low | High | N/A |
| Availability Impact | Low | High | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
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