CVE-2026-35369
Argument Parsing Flaw in uutils kill Causes System-wide Process Termination
Publication date: 2026-04-22
Last updated on: 2026-05-04
Assigner: Canonical Ltd.
Description
Description
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
| Probability: | |
| Percentile: |
Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| uutils | coreutils | to 0.6.0 (exc) |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-20 | The product receives input or data, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input has the properties that are required to process the data safely and correctly. |
Attack-Flow Graph
AI Powered Q&A
Can you explain this vulnerability to me?
This vulnerability is an argument parsing error in the kill utility of uutils coreutils. Specifically, when the command kill -1 is used, the utility incorrectly interprets it as a request to send the default signal (SIGTERM) to PID -1. Sending a signal to PID -1 causes the kernel to terminate all processes visible to the caller. This behavior differs from GNU coreutils, which correctly treats -1 as a signal number and reports a missing PID argument instead.
How can this vulnerability impact me? :
The impact of this vulnerability is that executing kill -1 on a system using the affected uutils coreutils can cause the kernel to terminate all processes visible to the user running the command. This can lead to a system crash or massive unintended process termination, potentially disrupting services and causing data loss or downtime.
How does this vulnerability affect compliance with common standards and regulations (like GDPR, HIPAA)?:
The provided information does not specify any direct impact of this vulnerability on compliance with common standards and regulations such as GDPR or HIPAA.
How can this vulnerability be detected on my network or system? Can you suggest some commands?
This vulnerability involves the improper handling of the `kill` command with the argument `-1` in uutils coreutils, which can cause a system crash by sending signals to all processes visible to the caller.
To detect if your system is vulnerable, you can test the behavior of the `kill` command with the `-1` argument.
- Run the command `kill -1` and observe the result.
- If the command does not return an error and instead attempts to send a signal to PID -1 (potentially terminating many processes), your system is vulnerable.
- If the command returns an error indicating a missing PID argument, your system has the fix applied.
What immediate steps should I take to mitigate this vulnerability?
The immediate mitigation step is to update the uutils coreutils package to a version that includes the fix for this vulnerability.
The fix was merged on December 19, 2025, and ensures that using `kill -1` correctly triggers an error instead of causing a system crash.
- Update uutils coreutils to the latest version containing the fix from pull request #9700.
- Avoid running `kill -1` or scripts that might invoke this command with `-1` as an argument until the update is applied.