CVE-2026-5928

Potential buffer under-read in ungetwc

Published Apr 20, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 7.5 High EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
Calling the ungetwc function on a FILE stream with wide characters encoded in a character set that has overlaps between its single byte and multi-byte character encodings, in the GNU C Library version 2.43 or earlier, may result in an attempt to read bytes before an allocated buffer, potentially resulting in unintentional disclosure of neighboring data in the heap, or a program crash.

A bug in the wide character pushback implementation (_IO_wdefault_pbackfail in libio/wgenops.c) causes ungetwc() to operate on the regular character buffer (fp->_IO_read_ptr) instead of the actual wide-stream read pointer (fp->_wide_data->_IO_read_ptr). The program crash may happen in cases where fp->_IO_read_ptr is not initialized and hence points to NULL. The buffer under-read requires a special situation where the input character encoding is such that there are overlaps between single byte representations and multibyte representations in that encoding, resulting in spurious matches. The spurious match case is not possible in the standard Unicode character sets.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
Ubuntu USN Ubuntu USN USN-8611-1 GNU C Library vulnerabilities
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Title Static buffer overflow in deprecated nis_local_principal Potential buffer under-read in ungetwc
Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Gnu
Gnu glibc
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:gnu:glibc:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Gnu
Gnu glibc
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 7.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'}

ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'yes', 'Exploitation': 'poc', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared The Gnu C Library
The Gnu C Library glibc
Vendors & Products The Gnu C Library
The Gnu C Library glibc
Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Calling the ungetwc function on a FILE stream with wide characters encoded in a character set that has overlaps between its single byte and multi-byte character encodings, in the GNU C Library version 2.43 or earlier, may result in an attempt to read bytes before an allocated buffer, potentially resulting in unintentional disclosure of neighboring data in the heap, or a program crash. A bug in the wide character pushback implementation (_IO_wdefault_pbackfail in libio/wgenops.c) causes ungetwc() to operate on the regular character buffer (fp->_IO_read_ptr) instead of the actual wide-stream read pointer (fp->_wide_data->_IO_read_ptr). The program crash may happen in cases where fp->_IO_read_ptr is not initialized and hence points to NULL. The buffer under-read requires a special situation where the input character encoding is such that there are overlaps between single byte representations and multibyte representations in that encoding, resulting in spurious matches. The spurious match case is not possible in the standard Unicode character sets.
Title Static buffer overflow in deprecated nis_local_principal
Weaknesses CWE-127
References
Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
glibc
Published
Updated
Oct 15, 2026, 1:12 AM
Reserved
Apr 8, 2026, 10:47 PM
Status
Modified
Published
Apr 20, 2026, 9:16 PM
Modified
Nov 11, 2026, 11:10 PM
Severity
Moderate
Public date
Apr 20, 2026, 8:37 PM