CVE-2026-18739
LowCVSS 2.5Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk1th percentile - higher than 1% of all known CVEs
Summary
A flaw was found in popt, a command-line option parsing library. An off-by-one error in the poptStuffArgs function, when repeatedly called by a host application or through deep alias nesting, can lead to corruption of internal program data. This corruption could potentially enable a local attacker to execute arbitrary code if the host application then unsafely processes the altered data.
Risk Assessment
A local attacker could exploit the data corruption to execute arbitrary code in the context of the host application, potentially leading to full system compromise.
Recommendation
Upgrade the popt library to a patched version if available. Restricting local access may reduce risk.
Other vulnerabilities in popt
See all- CVE-2026-18743Low
Vulnerability in the popt library allows an attacker to provide specially crafted configuration content that, when loaded, can lead to a small memory corruption issue due to an error in how the poptConfigFileToString function reallocates memory for buffers.
- CVE-2026-18839Low
An integer underflow was found in the popt library when formatting help text for option tables wider than the terminal width. A local user who can cause an application to print help under those conditions may cause the application to crash or fail to display help, resulting in a denial of service.
Original NVD description (English source)
A flaw was found in popt, a command-line option parsing library. An off-by-one error in the poptStuffArgs function, when repeatedly called by a host application or through deep alias nesting, can lead to corruption of internal program data. This corruption could potentially enable a local attacker to execute arbitrary code if the host application then unsafely processes the altered data.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS