CVE-2026-81879: radare radare2 Out-of-bounds Read

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-81879 is a medium (CVSS 6.1) Out-of-bounds Read vulnerability in radare radare2. EPSS estimates a 0.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 7.3% of scored vulnerabilities. 1 public exploit is recorded.

Timeline

1. 22-09-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 22-09-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

radare2 is a UNIX-like reverse engineering framework and command-line toolset. Prior to 6.2.0, radare2's ELF PN_XNUM handling was vulnerable because the ELF parser allocated the program-header array using the resolved PN_XNUM count but several consumers still iterated with the original e_phnum value of 65535. The vulnerability is triggered by processing a crafted ELF file with e_phnum = 0xffff and a much smaller resolved count in shdr[0].sh_info. Consumers iterated beyond the allocated program-header array. This can cause a heap out-of-bounds read and process termination, resulting in denial of service; memory disclosure and code execution have not been demonstrated. This issue is fixed in version 6.2.0.

• CWE-125Out-of-bounds ReadThe product reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.