🛡️ CVE-2026-40553 — gawk

🟠 CVSS 7.5 — High ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-121 NVD
7.5
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

Buffer overflow vulnerability has been found in "extension/readdir.c" program file of gawk (ftype() routine). This issue could be used to crash the program and potentially to achieve code execution, although the latter has not been confirmed to be feasible. It affects gawk in versions 5.4.0 and below.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached over the network, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs no privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality none, integrity none, availability high.

Weakness class

CVE-2026-40553 is classified as CWE-121: Stack-based Buffer Overflow. An oversized write to a stack buffer overwrites saved state such as return addresses, which can redirect execution.

Affected software

CVE-2026-40553 is recorded against 1 package.

  • gawk (fixed in 5.4.0)

Timeline and source

Published on 13 July 2026 and last revised on 14 July 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. A vendor advisory or fix has been published. Record sourced from NVD.

References

cert.pl
cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org

Details

Severity HIGH
CVSS Score 7.5
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE CWE-121
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2026-07-13
Updated 2026-08-11
Modified 2026-07-14

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
gawk — 5.4.0

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