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CVE-2026-40553

Stack-based buffer overflow in gawk

HIGH
7.5
CVSS Score
Published: July 13, 2026 at 12:07 PM UTC
Updated: October 24, 2026 at 10:10 PM UTC
2 products affected across 2 vendorsGawkGawk

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Severity
HIGH7.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.3%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

Buffer overflow vulnerability has been found in "extension/readdir.c" program file of gawk (ftype() routine). This issue could be used to crash the program and potentially to achieve code execution, although the latter has not been confirmed to be feasible. It affects gawk in versions 5.4.0 and below.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

Gawk· Fossies
95%
v ≤ 5.4.0
Gawk· Gnu
90%
0 ≤ v ≤ 5.4.0

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

Patch and advisory references

References (2)

Patch
Source: cverecord
https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gawk.git/commit/?id=cca0366144336b49aaa7d5d949966ce8e2c70843
Third Party Advisory
Source: cverecord
https://cert.pl/en/posts/2026/07/CVE-2026-40467

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

7.5HIGH[email protected]
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusANALYZED
CWE
CWE-121

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