CVE-2026-103658

5.9Medium

Published 12 Oct 2026 · NVD status: Awaiting Analysis · AI triage by gemini-3.8-flash

5.9Medium

Attack vector: Local
Complexity: Low
Privileges needed: None
User interaction: None
Impact: Limited impact
Weakness: CWE-122

Impact

Attackers can corrupt heap memory to cause a crash or potentially run arbitrary code. They need to trick a user or automated process into loading a maliciously crafted .rws dictionary file.

Root cause

A signed integer overflow in String::reserve() skips buffer reallocation when handling oversized 32-bit length fields from .rws dictionary headers, causing an out-of-bounds heap write.

Affected systems

GNU Aspell 0.60.8.2 (initial vulnerable version is not known).

CVSS v3.1 · CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

Fix & remediation

Upgrade to GNU Aspell 0.60.8.3 or apply commit b830b6e. If patching must wait, avoid loading or parsing untrusted .rws dictionary files with tools like 'aspell dump master'.

shell

$ aspell -v

AI-suggested. Run it in staging first and check it against the vendor advisory. Why?

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NVD description

GNU Aspell 0.60.8.2 (first vulnerable version is not known) contains a heap-based buffer overflow write (CWE-122) in its read-only dictionary loader. String::reserve() in common/string.hpp computes its capacity check with a signed int ((int)s + 1), so a requested size of 0x7FFFFFFF wraps negative and the backing buffer is never grown. ReadOnlyDict::load() in modules/speller/default/readonly_ws.cpp passes the unvalidated 32-bit size fields from a .rws dictionary header into this path, so a crafted .rws file with a valid endian marker (12345678) and an oversized length field (e.g. lang_name_size = 0x7FFFFFFF) causes attacker-controlled data to be written out of bounds past an undersized heap allocation. An attacker who induces a victim to load a malicious dictionary — for example via aspell dump master <file> — can corrupt heap memory, resulting in denial of service and potentially code execution. Fixed in b830b6e and will be fixed in release 0.60.8.3.

References

Source: nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-103658