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Fencer Intel
critical 9.1

CVE-2026-40468 json

Heap buffer overflow in gawk

published 2026-07-13 3 mo ago modified 2026-10-24 15 d ago also EUVD-2026-43493 , JLSEC-2026-786

cvss
9.1
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 10%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Integer overflow vulnerability has been found in "builtin.c" program file of gawk. This issue may lead to memory exhaustion on the hosting operating system and could be used to overwrite gawk heap metadata and objects with attacker-controlled bytes. It affects gawk in versions 5.4.0 and below.

Patch / fix

  • julia gawk_jll 5.4.1+0
  • gawk Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 1:5.1.0-1ubuntu0.2
  • gawk Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 1:5.2.1-2ubuntu0.1
  • gawk Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 1:5.3.2-1ubuntu1.1
  • gawk Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 1:4.0.1+dfsg-2.1ubuntu2+esm2
  • gawk Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 1:4.1.3+dfsg-0.1ubuntu0.1~esm2
  • gawk Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS 1:4.1.4+dfsg-1ubuntu0.1~esm2
  • gawk Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS 1:5.0.1+dfsg-1ubuntu0.1+esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-40468

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • gawk RHEL 8 4.2.1-5.el8_10
  • gawk RHEL 9 5.1.0-6.el9_8.1
  • gawk-all-langpacks RHEL 9 5.1.0-6.el9_8.1
  • gawk RHEL 10.2 5.3.0-6.el10_2.1
  • gawk-all-langpacks RHEL 10.2 5.3.0-6.el10_2.1
  • gawk hummingbird 1 5.4.1-1.hum1
  • gawk-all-langpacks hummingbird 1 5.4.1-1.hum1
  • gawk hummingbird 1 5.4.0-3.1.hum1

red hat advisories RHSA-2026:73511RHSA-2026:73512RHSA-2026:73429RHSA-2026:49661RHSA-2026:40041

  • gawk SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7, SLE Micro 5.5, SLE Micro 5.4 +1 more 4.2.1-150000.3.6.1
  • gawk Linux Micro 6.0 5.3.0-2.1
  • gawk SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 5.3.2-160000.3.1
  • gawk SLES LTSS Extended Security 12 SP5 4.1.0-5.6.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:3455-1SUSE-SU-2026:23042-1SUSE-SU-2026:3211-1SUSE-SU-2026:22767-1SUSE-SU-2026:22831-1

  • gawk openSUSE Leap 16.0 5.3.2-160000.3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21393-1

  • gawk AlmaLinux 10 5.3.0-6.el10_2.1
  • gawk-all-langpacks AlmaLinux 10 5.3.0-6.el10_2.1
  • gawk AlmaLinux 8 4.2.1-5.el8_10
  • gawk AlmaLinux 9 5.1.0-6.el9_8.1
  • gawk-all-langpacks AlmaLinux 9 5.1.0-6.el9_8.1

almalinux advisories ALSA-2026:73429ALSA-2026:73511ALSA-2026:73512

  • gawk Rocky Linux 8 4.2.1-5.el8_10
  • gawk Rocky Linux 10 5.3.0-6.el10_2.1
  • gawk Rocky Linux 9 5.1.0-6.el9_8.1

rocky linux advisories RLSA-2026:73511RLSA-2026:73429RLSA-2026:73512

  • gawk Azure Linux 3.0 5.2.2-2

azure linux advisories AZL-92289

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-40468 updated cvss 4.4

gawk: gawk: Memory corruption via integer overflow

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 gawk
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Do not execute untrusted awk scripts or process untrusted inputs that could trigger oversized calculations in builtin.c.”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 gawk Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Do not execute untrusted awk scripts or process untrusted inputs that could trigger oversized calculations in builtin.c.”
  • Red Hat Cost Management On-Premise 1 costmanagement/costmanagement-ui-rhel10 1791460851
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not execute untrusted awk scripts or process untrusted inputs that could trigger oversized calculations in builtin.c.” RHSA-2026:79357
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) gawk-all-langpacks 5.1.0-6.el9_8.1
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not execute untrusted awk scripts or process untrusted inputs that could trigger oversized calculations in builtin.c.” RHSA-2026:73512
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 10) gawk-all-langpacks 5.3.0-6.el10_2.1
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not execute untrusted awk scripts or process untrusted inputs that could trigger oversized calculations in builtin.c.” RHSA-2026:73429
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 8) gawk 4.2.1-5.el8_10
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not execute untrusted awk scripts or process untrusted inputs that could trigger oversized calculations in builtin.c.” RHSA-2026:73511
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 9) gawk 5.1.0-6.el9_8.1
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not execute untrusted awk scripts or process untrusted inputs that could trigger oversized calculations in builtin.c.” RHSA-2026:73512
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 10) gawk 5.3.0-6.el10_2.1
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not execute untrusted awk scripts or process untrusted inputs that could trigger oversized calculations in builtin.c.” RHSA-2026:73429
show 4 more
  • Red Hat Hardened Images gawk 5.4.1-1.hum1, gawk 5.4.0-3.1.hum1, gawk-all-langpacks 5.4.1-1.hum1, gawk-all-langpacks 5.4.0-3.1.hum1
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not execute untrusted awk scripts or process untrusted inputs that could trigger oversized calculations in builtin.c.” RHSA-2026:40041
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.22 rhcos 4.22.9.8.202610241758
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not execute untrusted awk scripts or process untrusted inputs that could trigger oversized calculations in builtin.c.” RHSA-2026:89197
  • Red Hat Update Infrastructure 5 rhui5/cds-rhel9 1791978528, rhui5/rhua-rhel9 1791978693, rhui5/haproxy-rhel9 1791978528, rhui5/installer-rhel9 1791964013, rhui5/cds-kubernetes-rhel9 1791978534
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not execute untrusted awk scripts or process untrusted inputs that could trigger oversized calculations in builtin.c.” RHSA-2026:82939
  • Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) rhoai/odh-kserve-controller-rhel9, rhoai/odh-model-serving-api-rhel9, rhoai/odh-llama-stack-k8s-operator-rhel9, rhoai/odh-kserve-llmisvc-controller-rhel9
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
3 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.20% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 10% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 2.1 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:L
CNA 4.0 2.1 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:L/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
NVD 3.1 9.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
OSV 3.1 9.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
julia gawk_jll
<5.4.1+0
5.4.1+0

Affected products

  • GNU gawk

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-190 Integer Overflow or Wraparound

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.