CVE-2026-35378: uutils coreutils expr Local Denial of Service via Eager Evaluation of Parenthesized Subexpressions

Published Apr 22, 2026
·
Updated

A logic error in the expr utility of uutils coreutils causes the program to evaluate parenthesized subexpressions during the parsing phase rather than at the execution phase. This implementation flaw prevents the utility from performing proper short-circuiting for logical OR (|) and AND (&) operations. As a result, arithmetic errors (such as division by zero) occurring within "dead" branches, branches that should be ignored due to short-circuiting, are raised as fatal errors. This divergence from GNU expr behavior can cause guarded expressions within shell scripts to fail with hard errors instead of returning expected boolean results, leading to premature script termination and breaking GNU-compatible shell control flow.

Affected Software

2 affected components
uutils uutils coreutils
uutils Coreutils Rust<0.8.0

Event History

Apr 22, 2026
CVE Published
via MITRE·04:09 PM
Data Sourced
via MITRE·04:09 PM
DescriptionSeverityWeakness
Data Sourced
via NVD·05:16 PM
RemedyDescriptionSeverityWeaknessAffected Software

Frequently Asked Questions

1

What is the severity of CVE-2026-35378?

CVE-2026-35378 is categorized as a Local Denial of Service vulnerability.

2

How do I fix CVE-2026-35378?

To fix CVE-2026-35378, update to the latest version of uutils coreutils where the vulnerability has been addressed.

3

What versions of uutils coreutils are affected by CVE-2026-35378?

CVE-2026-35378 affects all versions of uutils coreutils prior to the patched version.

4

What is the impact of CVE-2026-35378?

The impact of CVE-2026-35378 is a potential denial of service due to unhandled eager evaluation of parenthesized subexpressions.

5

Can CVE-2026-35378 be exploited remotely?

CVE-2026-35378 typically requires local access to exploit and does not appear to be remotely exploitable.

Contact

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