GNU patch is vulnerable to a NULL pointer dereference when processing a specially crafted unified-diff patch file. (CVE-2026-56288)
GNU patch is vulnerable to a NULL pointer dereference when processing a specially crafted unified-diff patch file. Improper handling of consecutive end-of-file newline markers can corrupt internal hunk (single block of changes in diff) data structures, causing the application to pass a NULL pointer to fwrite() during patch processing. An attacker can trigger this condition with a malicious patch file, causing the utility to crash and resulting in a denial of service. This issue has been fixed in the commit e6d6a4e021660679d7fc9150f981d4920f722313
GNU patch is vulnerable to a NULL pointer dereference when processing a specially crafted unified-diff patch file. (CVE-2026-56288)
Description
GNU patch is vulnerable to a NULL pointer dereference when processing a specially crafted unified-diff patch file. Improper handling of consecutive end-of-file newline markers can corrupt internal hunk (single block of changes in diff) data structures, causing the application to pass a NULL pointer to fwrite() during patch processing. An attacker can trigger this condition with a malicious patch file, causing the utility to crash and resulting in a denial of service. This issue has been fixed in the commit e6d6a4e021660679d7fc9150f981d4920f722313
CVSS v3.1
Score 5.5medium
Affected software
pkg:deb/ubuntu/[email protected]+esm1?arch=source&distro=esm-infra-legacy/trustypkg:deb/ubuntu/[email protected]?arch=source&distro=xenialpkg:deb/ubuntu/[email protected]?arch=source&distro=bionicpkg:deb/ubuntu/[email protected]?arch=source&distro=jammypkg:deb/ubuntu/[email protected]?arch=source&distro=noblepkg:deb/ubuntu/[email protected]?arch=source&distro=questingpkg:deb/ubuntu/[email protected]?arch=source&distro=resoluteRun on your own infrastructure? Check whether these packages are installed with threat-finder — our free open-source scanner.
Technical Details
- Gcve Source
- db.gcve.eu
- Osv Id
- UBUNTU-CVE-2026-56288
- Osv Schema Version
- 1.7.0
- Ecosystems
- ["Ubuntu:Pro:14.04:LTS","Ubuntu:16.04:LTS","Ubuntu:18.04:LTS","Ubuntu:20.04:LTS","Ubuntu:22.04:LTS","Ubuntu:24.04:LTS","Ubuntu:25.10","Ubuntu:26.04:LTS"]
- Cvss Version
- 4.0
- State
- PUBLISHED
Threat ID: 6a58b47468715ace43d8d348
Added to database: 07/16/2026, 10:37:40 UTC
Last enriched: 07/16/2026, 11:48:03 UTC
Last updated: 09/14/2026, 10:01:32 UTC
Views: 28
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