Red Hat Enterprise Linux/Hardened Images Symlink Parsing iterReadArchiveNext integer overflow

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as problematic has been reported in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Hardened Images. Affected is the function iterReadArchiveNext of the component Symlink Parsing. This manipulation causes integer overflow. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-95520. The attack can only be executed locally. There is no exploit available.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Hardened Images (the affected version is unknown). It has been declared as problematic. Affected by this vulnerability is the function iterReadArchiveNext of the component Symlink Parsing. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a integer overflow vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-190. The product performs a calculation that can produce an integer overflow or wraparound, when the logic assumes that the resulting value will always be larger than the original value. This can introduce other weaknesses when the calculation is used for resource management or execution control. As an impact it is known to affect integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

A heap-based buffer overflow flaw was found in rpm. Parsing a symlink entry in an untrusted RPM package whose declared RPMTAG_LONGFILESIZES value is 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF causes an integer overflow in iterReadArchiveNext() that shrinks a buffer allocation to one byte, after which the payload's independently-controlled cpio filesize field is used to write attacker-controlled data past the end of that allocation. This is reachable via rpm2cpio, rpm2archive, and rpm -qlvp on an untrusted package.

The advisory is shared at access.redhat.com. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-95520 since 09/22/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. An attack has to be approached locally. It demands that the victim is doing some kind of user interaction. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 09/29/2026).

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Red Hat

Name

• Enterprise Linux
• Hardened Images

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.redhat.com/

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Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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