CVE-2026-56289

GNU patch is vulnerable to a denial of service (DoS) due to improper validation of hunk (single block of changes in diff) line offsets in unified-diff input. A specially crafted patch can specify an extremely large line number, causing the application to enter an effectively infinite processing loop while attempting to locate the requested position. This results in excessive CPU consumption and prevents the process from completing. An attacker can trigger this behavior by supplying a malicious patch file, causing the utility to become unresponsive and require manual termination. This issue has been fixed in the commit faba04ef4f2b410257f76c1b9dc85e350929c4b9

CVSS v3 5.5 MEDIUM

5.5^/10

CVSS v3 : MEDIUM

Vector :

Exploitability : 1.8 / Impact : 3.6

Attack Vector LOCAL

Attack Complexity LOW

Privileges Required LOW

User Interaction NONE

Confidentiality Impact NONE

Integrity Impact NONE

Availability Impact HIGH

Scope UNCHANGED

References

Link	Resource
https://cert.pl/en/posts/2026/07/CVE-2026-56288	Third Party Advisory
https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/patch.git/	Patch
https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/patch.git/commit/?id=faba04ef4f2b410257f76c1b9dc85e350929c4b9	Patch

Configurations

Configuration 1 (hide)

cpe:2.3:a:gnu:patch:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

History

13 Jul 2026, 14:10

Type	Values Removed	Values Added
First Time		Gnu Gnu patch
References	~~() https://cert.pl/en/posts/2026/07/CVE-2026-56288 -~~	() https://cert.pl/en/posts/2026/07/CVE-2026-56288 - Third Party Advisory
References	~~() https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/patch.git/ -~~	() https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/patch.git/ - Patch
References	~~() https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/patch.git/commit/?id=faba04ef4f2b410257f76c1b9dc85e350929c4b9 -~~	() https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/patch.git/commit/?id=faba04ef4f2b410257f76c1b9dc85e350929c4b9 - Patch
CPE		cpe:2.3:a:gnu:patch::::::::
CVSS	v2 : ~~unknown~~ v3 : ~~unknown~~	v2 : unknown v3 : 5.5

09 Jul 2026, 11:16

Type	Values Removed	Values Added
New CVE

Information

Published : 2026-07-09 11:16

Updated : 2026-07-13 14:10

NVD link : CVE-2026-56289

Mitre link : CVE-2026-56289

CVE.ORG link : CVE-2026-56289

JSON object : View

Products Affected

gnu

patch

CWE

CWE-835

Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop')

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