Stack-based out-of-bounds write in tdelete during tree rebalancing
Historical advisory recorded 23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC. Read the latest advisory.
cve-program · CVE-2026-19542
PublishedCalling tdelete on a sufficiently deep tree in the GNU C Library version 2.1 to 2.44 may write one pointer past the end of an alloca-allocated array on the stack, which may crash the application. The tdelete implementation keeps an explicit stack of parent nodes for rebalancing, which is grown as needed while descending the tree. Two rebalancing branches push an additional entry without checking the capacity, and write past the array when the stack is exactly full. Triggering this requires a node at a depth of exactly 40 (or 40 plus a multiple of 20), which implies a tree with at least a million nodes, so an attacker must drive a large number of insertions and deletions through an application that uses tsearch and tdelete. The written value is a pointer into a tree node and is not directly attacker controlled. No affected application in common distributions has been identified.
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cve-program · CVE-2026-19542
PublishedStack-based out-of-bounds write in tdelete during tree rebalancing
Calling tdelete on a sufficiently deep tree in the GNU C Library version 2.1 to 2.44 may write one pointer past the end of an alloca-allocated array on the stack, which may crash the application. The tdelete implementation keeps an explicit stack of parent nodes for rebalancing, which is grown as needed while descending the tree. Two rebalancing branches push an additional entry without checking the capacity, and write past the array when the stack is exactly full. Triggering this requires a node at a depth of exactly 40 (or 40 plus a multiple of 20), which implies a tree with at least a million nodes, so an attacker must drive a large number of insertions and deletions through an application that uses tsearch and tdelete. The written value is a pointer into a tree node and is not directly attacker controlled. No affected application in common distributions has been identified.
- Source published
- 14 Sep 2026 17:18:09 UTC
- Source modified
- 14 Sep 2026 19:42:06 UTC
- Saved here
- 23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC
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- CVE Program Terms of Use
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CVSS 3.1 · 5.6 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L