uutils/coreutils · Security

comm: FIFO/pipe inputs are drained before comparison (data loss / hang)

GHSA ID
GHSA-3wfc-mgpm-9rq6
CVE ID
CVE-2026-35347
Severity
medium
Published
Updated
CVSS
4.4 · CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
CVSS v3
4.4 · CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L

Description

The comm utility in uutils coreutils incorrectly consumes data from non-regular file inputs before performing comparison operations. The are_files_identical function opens and reads from both input paths to compare content without first verifying if the paths refer to regular files. If an input path is a FIFO or a pipe, this pre-read operation drains the stream, leading to silent data loss before the actual comparison logic is executed. Additionally, the utility may hang indefinitely if it attempts to pre-read from infinite streams like /dev/zero.


Zellic finding 3.35. Reported in the Zellic uutils coreutils Program Security Assessment (for Canonical, Jan 2026), audited commit 3a07ffc5a9bd4c283e75afa548ba1f1957bad242.

CWEs

References