Vulnerability Database

328,411

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2026-0861

Passing too large an alignment to the memalign suite of functions (memalign, posix_memalign, aligned_alloc) in the GNU C Library version 2.30 to 2.42 may result in an integer overflow, which could consequently result in a heap corruption.

Note that the attacker must have control over both, the size as well as the alignment arguments of the memalign function to be able to exploit this. The size parameter must be close enough to PTRDIFF_MAX so as to overflow size_t along with the large alignment argument. This limits the malicious inputs for the alignment for memalign to the range [1<<62+ 1, 1<<63] and exactly 1<<63 for posix_memalign and aligned_alloc.

Typically the alignment argument passed to such functions is a known constrained quantity (e.g. page size, block size, struct sizes) and is not attacker controlled, because of which this may not be easily exploitable in practice. An application bug could potentially result in the input alignment being too large, e.g. due to a different buffer overflow or integer overflow in the application or its dependent libraries, but that is again an uncommon usage pattern given typical sources of alignments.

  • Published: Jan 14, 2026
  • Updated: Feb 4, 2026
  • CVE: CVE-2026-0861
  • Severity: High
  • Exploit:

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: High
  • Score: 8.4
  • AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CWEs:

Frequently Asked Questions

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.