CVE-2026-75818: CWE-122 Heap-based buffer overflow in GNU Aspell
Description
GNU Aspell prezip-bin contains a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the decompressor in prog/prezip.c. The decompressor does not properly check buffer space, so a crafted compressed file can cause out-of-bounds read and write operations on the heap. An attacker who convinces a user to process a malicious compressed file with prezip-bin can trigger memory corruption, leading to a processs crash. This issue was fixed in commit 15b188437f9e0192d4ac4472ad66a4e2f62a782f which will be released in version 0.60.8.3.
CVSS v4.0
Score 1.8low
Affected software
GNU
Aspell
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Weaknesses
AI-Powered Analysis
Machine-generated threat intelligence
Technical Analysis
CVE-2026-75818 describes a heap-based buffer overflow in the decompressor of GNU Aspell's prezip-bin (prog/prezip.c). The decompressor fails to properly verify available buffer space before performing operations, enabling crafted compressed files to trigger out-of-bounds heap reads and writes. This memory corruption can cause the affected process to crash. The vulnerability was addressed in commit 15b188437f9e0192d4ac4472ad66a4e2f62a782f and will be included in release 0.60.8.3.
Potential Impact
An attacker who convinces a user to process a malicious compressed file with prezip-bin can cause memory corruption resulting in a process crash. There is no indication of privilege escalation, remote code execution, or data disclosure. The impact is limited to denial of service via application crash.
Mitigation Recommendations
Upgrade GNU Aspell to version 0.60.8.3 or later, which includes the official fix for this vulnerability. Users should avoid processing untrusted compressed files with prezip-bin until patched.
Technical Details
- Data Version
- 5.2
- Assigner Short Name
- CERT-PL
- Date Reserved
- 2026-08-18T10:13:29.246Z
- Cvss Version
- 4.0
- State
- PUBLISHED
Threat ID: 6ac4d5ae2cdf04f6569deab0
Added to database: 10/06/2026, 11:04:14 UTC
Last enriched: 10/06/2026, 11:18:21 UTC
Last updated: 10/06/2026, 13:19:15 UTC
Views: 8
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