CVE-2026-86141
Received Received - Intake

NULL Pointer Dereference in libxml2 xmlregexp

Publication date: 2026-09-05

Last updated on: 2026-09-05

Assigner: MITRE

Description
xmlregexp in libxml2 before 2.15.4 has a NULL pointer dereference in xmlRegNewParserCtxt after a strdup failure, i.e., it does not calculate a string length after NULL checking.

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Meta Information

Published
2026-09-05
Last Modified
2026-09-05
Generated
2026-09-05
AI Q&A
2026-09-05
EPSS Evaluated
N/A
NVD
CVE-2026-86141
EUVD
EUVD-2026-71834

Affected Vendors & Products

Showing 1 associated CPE
Vendor Product Version / Range
gnome libxml2 to 2.15.4 (exc)

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Exploitability

CWE
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KEV
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CWE ID Description
CWE-252 The product does not check the return value from a method or function, which can prevent it from detecting unexpected states and conditions.

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Executive Summary

This vulnerability is a NULL pointer dereference in the xmlregexp component of libxml2 before version 2.15.4. It occurs when the function xmlRegNewParserCtxt fails to calculate a string length after a strdup operation fails, leading to undefined behavior or crashes during XML processing.

Detection Guidance

Detecting this vulnerability requires checking the version of libxml2 installed on your system. Use the command 'xml2-config --version' or 'rpm -q libxml2' on Linux to verify if the version is below 2.15.4. If the version is older, the system is likely vulnerable.

Impact Analysis

This vulnerability could cause applications using libxml2 to crash when processing malformed XML input, potentially leading to denial of service. It may also allow attackers to trigger unexpected behavior in applications that rely on libxml2 for XML parsing.

Mitigation Strategies

Immediately update libxml2 to version 2.15.4 or later. This can be done via package managers like 'apt-get upgrade libxml2' on Debian-based systems or 'yum update libxml2' on RHEL-based systems. Ensure no critical services depend on the old version before upgrading.

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