CVE-2026-18743: Popt-devel: popt-static: short realloc in poptconfigfiletostring

Severity: low (CVSS 2.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-09-01 · updated 2026-09-08
Weakness: CWE-131

Description

A flaw was found in popt. This vulnerability allows an attacker to provide specially crafted configuration content to a host, which, when loaded, can lead to a small memory corruption issue. This occurs because of an error in how the `poptConfigFileToString` function reallocates memory for buffers. Successful exploitation could result in heap metadata corruption, potentially causing the affected process to become unavailable (denial of service).

Affected products

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.18: all versions
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10: all versions
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6: all versions
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7: all versions
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8: all versions
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9: all versions
Red Hat Hardened Images: all versions — fixed in 1.19-11.1.hum1
rpm-software-management popt: from 1.11

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Red Hat Hardened Images 1.19-11.1.hum1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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