CVE-2026-92388: FTP wildcard write callback mixup

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.1 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-10-20 · updated 2026-10-30
Weakness: CWE-416

Description

When an FTP wildcard `LIST` operation fails, libcurl omits the restoration path meant for successful listings, leaving the write callback set to the internal listing parser and the write callback data pointing directly to the easy handle. Subsequent reuse of this handle triggers an immediate crash, and cloning it via `curl_easy_duphandle()` copies this corrupted state into the duplicate. If the original handle is subsequently freed, executing a transfer on the cloned handle causes a heap use-after-free read against the dangling handle reference; alternatively, reusing the original or cloned handle while changing only `CURLOPT_WRITEDATA` (and omitting `CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION`) results in type confusion, forcing the internal parser to interpret incoming server response bytes into memory at the application-supplied write data pointer.

Affected products

curl: from 8.22.0 through 8.22.0; from 8.21.0 through 8.21.0; from 8.20.0 through 8.20.0; from 8.19.0 through 8.19.0; from 8.18.0 through 8.18.0; from 8.17.0 through 8.17.0

References

Get alerted when CVE-2026-92388 or the next vulnerability affects your stack