Medium [CVE-2026-66485] GNU cpio: Denial of Service via uncontrolled memory allocation from crafted archives
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-66485 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
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Summary
GNU cpio is vulnerable to an uncontrolled memory allocation in the make_path function at src/makepath.c. The function uses alloca to allocate stack memory based on the length of argpath, which is derived from an archive-controlled pathname during extraction.
A malicious cpio archive containing a sufficiently long nested pathname causes an unbounded stack allocation, resulting in a stack overflow and crash of the cpio process. An attacker who can supply a crafted cpio archive to a victim who extracts it can cause a denial of service.
This issue has been fixed in commit 3cd514031371d8aeeaf2048aa10103e02831aaa9 This vulnerability involves uncontrolled memory allocation when processing specially crafted cpio archives. This results in a denial of service (DoS) for the affected system.
All Red Hat cpio packages (RHEL 6 through 10, RHIVOS) ship versions well below the fix and are affected. Red Hat severity: Moderate — CVSS 5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).
Weakness: CWE-120. Affected Red Hat products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.
Red Hat does not currently list a fixing RHSA for this CVE.
Affected products named by the advisory: Red Hat package: cpio.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source
Fixed versions
No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability. Users should avoid extracting cpio archives from untrusted sources.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source
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