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Description

GNU patch is vulnerable to a denial of service (DoS) due to improper validation of hunk (single block of changes in diff) line offsets in unified-diff input. A specially crafted patch can specify an extremely large line number, causing the application to enter an effectively infinite processing loop while attempting to locate the requested position. This results in excessive CPU consumption and prevents the process from completing. An attacker can trigger this behavior by supplying a malicious patch file, causing the utility to become unresponsive and require manual termination. This issue has been fixed in the commit faba04ef4f2b410257f76c1b9dc85e350929c4b9

PUBLISHED Reserved 2026-06-20 | Published 2026-07-09 | Updated 2026-07-09 | Assigner CERT-PL




MEDIUM: 4.6CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:L

Problem types

CWE-835 Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop')

Product status

Default status
unaffected

Any version
affected

Credits

Michał Majchrowicz (AFINE Team) finder

Marcin Wyczechowski (AFINE Team) finder

References

cert.pl/en/posts/2026/07/CVE-2026-56288 third-party-advisory

cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/patch.git/ product

cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/...f2b410257f76c1b9dc85e350929c4b9 patch

cve.org (CVE-2026-56289)

nvd.nist.gov (CVE-2026-56289)

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