Vulnerability · Published Apr 22, 2026 · Assigned by canonical
CVE-2026-35377uutils coreutils env Local Denial of Service via Improper Handling of Backslashes in Split-String Mode
Low 3.3
In plain English
A low-severity improper input validation in coreutils from Uutils. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.1% (higher than 1% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
A logic error in the env utility of uutils coreutils causes a failure to correctly parse command-line arguments when utilizing the -S (split-string) option. In GNU env, backslashes within single quotes are treated literally (with the exceptions of \\ and \'). However, the uutils implementation incorrectly attempts to validate these sequences, resulting in an "invalid sequence" error and an immediate process termination with an exit status of 125 when encountering valid but unrecognized sequences like \a or \x. This divergence from GNU behavior breaks compatibility for automated scripts and administrative workflows that rely on standard split-string semantics, leading to a local denial of service for those operations.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:12 | rust-coreutils | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-35377 |
| Debian:13 | rust-coreutils | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-35377 |
| Debian:14 | rust-coreutils | 0.10.0-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-35377 |
| Ubuntu:24.04:LTS | rust-coreutils | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-35377 |
| Ubuntu:25.10 | rust-coreutils | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-35377 |
| Ubuntu:26.04:LTS | rust-coreutils | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-35377 |
| Ubuntu:26.10 | rust-coreutils | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-35377 |
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-20 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
References
- https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/pull/11512 issue-tracking, patch