CVE-2025-5278

A flaw was found in GNU Coreutils. The sort utility's begfield() function is vulnerable to a heap buffer under-read. The program may access memory outside the allocated buffer if a user runs a crafted command using the traditional key format. A malicious input could lead to a crash or leak sensitive data.

These are the GNU core utilities. This package is the combination of the old GNU fileutils, sh-utils, and textutils packages.

Security Fix(es):

A flaw was found in GNU Coreutils. The sort utility's begfield() function is vulnerable to a heap buffer under-read. The program may access memory outside the allocated buffer if a user runs a crafted command using the traditional key format. A malicious input could lead to a crash or leak sensitive data.(CVE-2025-5278)

The coreutils packages contain the GNU Core Utilities and represent a combination of the previously used GNU fileutils, sh-utils, and textutils packages.

Security Fix(es):

• coreutils: Heap Buffer Under-Read in GNU Coreutils sort via Key Specification (CVE-2025-5278)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

The coreutils packages contain the GNU Core Utilities and represent a combination of the previously used GNU fileutils, sh-utils, and textutils packages.

Security Fix(es):

• coreutils: Heap Buffer Under-Read in GNU Coreutils sort via Key Specification (CVE-2025-5278)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

The coreutils packages contain the GNU Core Utilities and represent a combination of the previously used GNU fileutils, sh-utils, and textutils packages.

Security Fix(es):

• coreutils: Heap Buffer Under-Read in GNU Coreutils sort via Key Specification (CVE-2025-5278)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

A flaw was found in GNU Coreutils. The sort utility's begfield() function is vulnerable to a heap buffer under-read. The program may access memory outside the allocated buffer if a user runs a crafted command using the traditional key format. A malicious input could lead to a crash or leak sensitive data.

The coreutils packages contain the GNU Core Utilities and represent a combination of the previously used GNU fileutils, sh-utils, and textutils packages.

Security Fix(es):

• coreutils: Heap Buffer Under-Read in GNU Coreutils sort via Key Specification (CVE-2025-5278)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

The coreutils packages contain the GNU Core Utilities and represent a combination of the previously used GNU fileutils, sh-utils, and textutils packages.

Security Fix(es):

• coreutils: Heap Buffer Under-Read in GNU Coreutils sort via Key Specification (CVE-2025-5278)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

The coreutils packages contain the GNU Core Utilities and represent a combination of the previously used GNU fileutils, sh-utils, and textutils packages.

Security Fix(es):

• coreutils: Heap Buffer Under-Read in GNU Coreutils sort via Key Specification (CVE-2025-5278)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

A flaw was found in GNU Coreutils. The sort utility's begfield() function is vulnerable to a heap buffer under-read. The program may access memory outside the allocated buffer if a user runs a crafted command using the traditional key format. A malicious input could lead to a crash or leak sensitive data.

• CVE-2025-5278: sort - fix heap buffer under-read in begfield()/limfield() when a traditional key specification uses a very large character position

• CVE-2025-5278: fix heap buffer under-read in sort key specification by guarding the begfield/limfield pointer adjustment (backport of upstream 8c9602e3)

Heap buffer under-read in gnu coreutils sort via key specification. (CVE-2025-5278)

These are all security issues fixed in the coreutils-9.7-3.1 package on the GA media of openSUSE Tumbleweed.

Root has patched CVE-2025-5278 in the coreutils package for Root:Debian:12. Multiple fixed versions available.

This update for coreutils fixes the following issues:

• CVE-2025-5278: Fixed heap buffer under-read may lead to a crash or leak sensitive data (bsc#1243767)

This update for coreutils fixes the following issues:

Security fixes:

• CVE-2025-5278: Fixed heap buffer under-read may lead to a crash or leak sensitive data (bsc#1243767)

Other fixes:

• ls: avoid triggering automounts (bsc#1221632)
• tail: fix tailing sysfs files where PAGE_SIZE > BUFSIZ (bsc#1219321)

This update for coreutils fixes the following issues:

• CVE-2025-5278: Fixed heap buffer under-read may lead to a crash or leak sensitive data (bsc#1243767)

This update for coreutils fixes the following issues:

• CVE-2025-5278: Fixed heap buffer under-read ledaing to a crash or leak sensitive data (bsc#1243767)

This update for coreutils fixes the following issues:

• CVE-2025-5278: Sort with key character offsets of SIZE_MAX, could induce a read of 1 byte before an allocated heap buffer (bsc#1243767).

It was discovered that GNU Core Utilities sort had a heap buffer under-read in its begfield() function. A local attacker could possibly use this issue to cause GNU Core Utilities to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or obtain sensitive information. (CVE-2025-5278)

It was discovered that GNU Core Utilities uniq had an out-of-bounds read when the -w option was used with crafted multibyte input. A local attacker could possibly use this issue to cause GNU Core Utilities to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or obtain sensitive information. This issue only affected Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-56391)