CVE-2026-5928 | Static buffer overflow in deprecated nis_local_principal

Exp

Calling the ungetwc function on a FILE stream with wide characters encoded in a character set that has overlaps between its single byte and multi-byte character encodings, in the GNU C Library version 2.43 or earlier, may result in an attempt to read bytes before an allocated buffer, potentially resulting in unintentional disclosure of neighboring data in the heap, or a program crash. A bug in the wide character pushback implementation (_IO_wdefault_pbackfail in libio/wgenops.c) causes ungetwc() to operate on the regular character buffer (fp->_IO_read_ptr) instead of the actual wide-stream read pointer (fp->_wide_data->_IO_read_ptr). The program crash may happen in cases where fp->_IO_read_ptr is not initialized and hence points to NULL. The buffer under-read requires a special situation where the input character encoding is such that there are overlaps between single byte representations and multibyte representations in that encoding, resulting in spurious matches. The spurious match case is not possible in the standard Unicode character sets.

Published: 2026-04-20 Last update: 2026-04-23 Assigner: 3ff69d7a-14f2-4f67-a097-88dee7810d18 Source: 3ff69d7a-14f2-4f67-a097-88dee7810d18

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2026-5928 is rated Exploit Available (50.6/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.05%). Core evidence: 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Mandatory action: Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2026-5928

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2026-5928

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-05-22 0.02% 0.05% +0.03%
2 2026-04-21 0.02%

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2026-5928

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
3.9 3.6 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2026-5928

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2026-5928

GHSA-829p-mc9m-7xhr · Severity: high — Calling the ungetwc function on a FILE stream with wide characters encoded in a character set...

OS Trackers for CVE-2026-5928

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2026-5928 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (glibc), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): open 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-5928
suse medium https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-5928/
ubuntu medium CVE-2026-5928 medium priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (eglibc, glibc), 14 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, questing, resolute, trusty, upstream, xenial): needs-triage 10, DNE 4. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-5928

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2026-5928

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
gnu glibc <= 2.43 cpe:2.3:a:gnu:glibc:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2026-5928

cvelogic Threat Intelligence