Vulnerability · Published Apr 7, 2026 · Assigned by redhat
CVE-2026-5745Libarchive: a null pointer dereference vulnerability exists in the acl parser of libarchive
Medium 5.5
In plain English
A medium-severity null pointer dereference in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 from Red Hat. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 6% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
A flaw was found in libarchive. A NULL pointer dereference vulnerability exists in the ACL parsing logic, specifically within the archive_acl_from_text_nl() function. When processing a malformed ACL string (such as a bare "d" or "default" tag without subsequent fields), the function fails to perform adequate validation before advancing the pointer. An attacker can exploit this by providing a maliciously crafted archive, causing an application utilizing the libarchive API (such as bsdtar) to crash, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS).
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:12 | libarchive | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-5745 |
| Debian:13 | libarchive | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-5745 |
| Debian:14 | libarchive | 3.8.8-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-5745 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | libarchive | 3.6.0-1ubuntu1.8 | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-5745 |
| Ubuntu:24.04:LTS | libarchive | 3.7.2-2ubuntu0.8 | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-5745 |
| Ubuntu:25.10 | libarchive | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-5745 |
| Ubuntu:26.04:LTS | libarchive | 3.8.5-1ubuntu2.2 | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-5745 |
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat | Red Hat Hardened Images | see references |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | see references |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | see references |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | see references |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | see references |
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | see references |
| Red Hat | Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 | see references |
| Red Hat | Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 | see references |
Weakness: CWE-476 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
References
- RHSA-2026:8944 vendor-advisory, x_refsource_REDHAT
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-5745 vdb-entry, x_refsource_REDHAT
- RHBZ#2455921 issue-tracking, x_refsource_REDHAT