Vulnerability-Lookup

GHSA-8RVM-662M-JVQV

Vulnerability from github – Published: 2026-10-30 18:32 – Updated: 2026-10-30 18:32

Details

The fix for CVE-2014-0475 rejects ".." path components in locale names passed to setlocale or taken from the LC_ALL, LC_* and LANG environment variables. gettext reads LANGUAGE directly and appends each colon-separated entry to the message catalog directory, so that fix did not cover LANGUAGE.

LANGUAGE is only used when the LC_MESSAGES locale is not "C", "C." or "POSIX", so the attacker must also be able to select another installed locale, for example through LANG or LC_ALL. Exploitation also requires that the attacker can place the crafted file in a location readable by the target program, and that the environment crosses a trust boundary without the program running as AT_SECURE. An example is an SSH server that accepts LANGUAGE and LANG from clients through the AcceptEnv directive and restricts an account to a forced command; the attacker may use this to escape the restriction.

Severity

7.0 (High)


                  
                    CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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{
  "affected": [],
  "aliases": [
    "CVE-2026-84243"
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "cwe_ids": [
      "CWE-22"
    ],
    "github_reviewed": false,
    "github_reviewed_at": null,
    "nvd_published_at": "2026-10-30T18:18:13Z",
    "severity": "HIGH"
  },
  "details": "The gettext family of functions in the GNU C Library version 2.0 and later accept LANGUAGE environment variable entries that contain \u0027/\u0027 or that are equal to \"..\", unless the program is setuid or setgid (AT_SECURE).  An attacker who can set LANGUAGE in the environment of a program that uses gettext can make it load a message catalog (.mo file) from an arbitrary location in the file system.  A crafted .mo file can crash the program through out-of-range offsets, or supply translations whose format directives do not match the arguments passed by the program.  That causes undefined behaviour in the printf family of functions and may allow arbitrary code execution with the privileges of the program.  The safety of message catalogs relies on them being installed in trusted, read-only locations, and the directory traversal bypasses this.\n\nThe fix for CVE-2014-0475 rejects \"..\" path components in locale names passed to setlocale or taken from the LC_ALL, LC_* and LANG environment variables.  gettext reads LANGUAGE directly and appends each colon-separated entry to the message catalog directory, so that fix did not cover LANGUAGE.\n\nLANGUAGE is only used when the LC_MESSAGES locale is not \"C\", \"C.\u003cencoding\u003e\" or \"POSIX\", so the attacker must also be able to select another installed locale, for example through LANG or LC_ALL.  Exploitation also requires that the attacker can place the crafted file in a location readable by the target program, and that the environment crosses a trust boundary without the program running as AT_SECURE.  An example is an SSH server that accepts LANGUAGE and LANG from clients through the AcceptEnv directive and restricts an account to a forced command; the attacker may use this to escape the restriction.",
  "id": "GHSA-8rvm-662m-jvqv",
  "modified": "2026-10-30T18:32:45Z",
  "published": "2026-10-30T18:32:45Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "ADVISORY",
      "url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-84243"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://inbox.sourceware.org/libc-alpha/20261012112453.47383-1-avinal.xlvii@gmail.com"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17142"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=blob_plain;f=advisories/GLIBC-SA-2026-0025"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.4.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    }
  ]
}

CVE-2026-84243 (GCVE-0-2026-84243)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-10-30 17:43 – Updated: 2026-10-31 03:56

Title

gettext: Directory traversal via the LANGUAGE environment variable

Summary

The gettext family of functions in the GNU C Library version 2.0 and later accept LANGUAGE environment variable entries that contain '/' or that are equal to "..", unless the program is setuid or setgid (AT_SECURE). An attacker who can set LANGUAGE in the environment of a program that uses gettext can make it load a message catalog (.mo file) from an arbitrary location in the file system. A crafted .mo file can crash the program through out-of-range offsets, or supply translations whose format directives do not match the arguments passed by the program. That causes undefined behaviour in the printf family of functions and may allow arbitrary code execution with the privileges of the program. The safety of message catalogs relies on them being installed in trusted, read-only locations, and the directory traversal bypasses this. The fix for CVE-2014-0475 rejects ".." path components in locale names passed to setlocale or taken from the LC_ALL, LC_* and LANG environment variables. gettext reads LANGUAGE directly and appends each colon-separated entry to the message catalog directory, so that fix did not cover LANGUAGE. LANGUAGE is only used when the LC_MESSAGES locale is not "C", "C.<encoding>" or "POSIX", so the attacker must also be able to select another installed locale, for example through LANG or LC_ALL. Exploitation also requires that the attacker can place the crafted file in a location readable by the target program, and that the environment crosses a trust boundary without the program running as AT_SECURE. An example is an SSH server that accepts LANGUAGE and LANG from clients through the AcceptEnv directive and restricts an account to a forced command; the attacker may use this to escape the restriction.

Severity

7 (High)


                        
                          CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

SSVC

Exploitation: none Automatable: no Technical Impact: total

CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)

Decision recorded 2026-10-30 00:00 UTC

CWE

CWE-22 - Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

Assigner

glibc CNA under the redhat root

CNA scorecard B 80/100 over 14 records in the last 180 days details

References

3 references

URL	Tags
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17142	issue-tracking
https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=blob_pl…	vendor-advisory
https://inbox.sourceware.org/libc-alpha/202610121…	mailing-listpatch

Impacted products

1 product

Vendor	Product	Version
The GNU C Library	glibc	Affected: 2.0 , < * (custom)

Date Public

2014-07-11 05:00

Credits

Florian Weimer

Show details on NVD website

JSON

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Sightings

Author	Source	Type	Date	Other

Nomenclature

Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.

Vulnerability timeline

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The MITRE ATT&CK techniques below are AI-generated suggestions, inferred from the description of the vulnerability by the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-classification-roberta-base model, served locally by ML-Gateway. They have not been verified by an analyst and are provided for guidance only.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
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