CVE-2025-5278: Heap Buffer Under-Read in GNU Coreutils sort begfield()
CVE-2025-5278 Published on May 27, 2025

Coreutils: heap buffer under-read in gnu coreutils sort via key specification
A flaw was found in GNU Coreutils. The sort utility's begfield() function is vulnerable to a heap buffer under-read. The program may access memory outside the allocated buffer if a user runs a crafted command using the traditional key format. A malicious input could lead to a crash or leak sensitive data.

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Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2025-5278 is exploitable with local system access, requires user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have a small impact on confidentiality, a small impact on integrity, and a small impact on availability.

Attack Vector:
LOCAL
Attack Complexity:
LOW
Privileges Required:
NONE
User Interaction:
REQUIRED
Scope:
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact:
LOW
Integrity Impact:
NONE
Availability Impact:
LOW

Timeline

Reported to Red Hat.

Made public.

Weakness Type

What is a Stack Overflow Vulnerability?

A stack-based buffer overflow condition is a condition where the buffer being overwritten is allocated on the stack (i.e., is a local variable or, rarely, a parameter to a function).

CVE-2025-5278 has been classified to as a Stack Overflow vulnerability or weakness.


Products Associated with CVE-2025-5278

You can be notified by email with stack.watch whenever vulnerabilities like CVE-2025-5278 are published in these products:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
 
Red Hat Openshift
 
Red Hat Rhivos
 
Red Hat Discovery
 
Red Hat Openshift Distributed Tracing
 
Red Hat Insights Proxy
 
Red Hat Cost Management
 
Red Hat Rhui
 
Canonical Ubuntu Linux
 
Red Hat Cert Manager
 

Exploit Probability

EPSS
0.29%
Percentile
19.32%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) scores estimate the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. The percentile shows you how this score compares to all other vulnerabilities.