GNU patch is vulnerable to a NULL pointer dereference when processing a specially crafted unified-diff patch file. Improper handling of consecutive end-of-file newline markers can corrupt internal hunk (single block of changes in diff) data structures, causing the application to pass a NULL pointer to fwrite() during patch processing.
An attacker can trigger this condition with a malicious patch file, causing the utility to crash and resulting in a denial of service.
This issue has been fixed in the commit e6d6a4e021660679d7fc9150f981d4920f722313
References
| Link | Resource |
|---|---|
| https://cert.pl/en/posts/2026/07/CVE-2026-56288 | Third Party Advisory |
| https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/patch.git/ | Patch Product |
| https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/patch.git/commit/?id=e6d6a4e021660679d7fc9150f981d4920f722313 | Patch |
Configurations
History
No history.
Information
Published : 2026-07-09 11:16
Updated : 2026-07-13 14:08
NVD link : CVE-2026-56288
Mitre link : CVE-2026-56288
CVE.ORG link : CVE-2026-56288
JSON object : View
Products Affected
gnu
- patch
CWE
CWE-476
NULL Pointer Dereference
