uutils coreutils has an Incorrect Short Circuit Evaluation Issue

Exploitation

No confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next marks exploitation only from CISA KEV.

CVSS

3.3 · CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

EPSS

• CVE-2026-35378: 0.16% estimated exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 4.79 (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-03). This is a model estimate, not proof of exploitation or customer exposure.

As published by the source; long descriptions are shortened.

A logic error in the expr utility of uutils coreutils causes the program to evaluate parenthesized subexpressions during the parsing phase rather than at the execution phase. This implementation flaw prevents the utility from performing proper short-circuiting for logical OR (|) and AND (&) operations. As a result, arithmetic errors (such as division by zero) occurring within "dead" branches, branches that should be ignored due to short-circuiting, are raised as fatal errors. This divergence from GNU expr behavior can cause guarded expressions within shell scripts to fail with hard errors instead of returning expected boolean results, leading to premature script termination and breaking GNU-compatible shell control flow.

Published by the source

22 Apr 2026, 18:31 UTC

Last modified by the source

30 Apr 2026, 18:05 UTC

Source last checked

26 Oct 2026, 15:42 UTC

1. Revision 1 · created · 26 Oct 2026

   Published from ghsa record GHSA-5pv5-xh52-hvrp

Preview the exact text before you copy it. Commands are read-only suggestions; review them before running anything.

# Patch Next advisory brief: CVE-2026-35378

Advisory: uutils coreutils has an Incorrect Short Circuit Evaluation Issue
IDs: CVE-2026-35378, GHSA-5pv5-xh52-hvrp
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/cve-2026-35378 (revision 1, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 15:42 UTC)
Inventory: none attached. This brief comes from a public page and does not say whether any deployment is affected.
Severity: Low (CVSS 3.3)
Exploitation: no confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next confirms exploitation only from CISA KEV.
Vendor response: Vendor fix available; fixed versions by package: coreutils 0.8.0. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- crates.io coreutils: affected < 0.8.0; fixed in 0.8.0

## Suggested inspection (read-only)
- crates.io coreutils: check the installed version with your package manager.

## Supported action
Upgrade each affected component to a fixed version on its release line. For a transitive dependency, upgrade the parent package or add an override or constraint, then regenerate the lockfile. Redeploy every environment that ran an affected version.

## Required regression checks
- Run the test suite and a production build.
- Exercise the features that depend on coreutils.
- Repeat the inspection and confirm that only fixed versions remain installed.

## Rollback considerations
- Keep the previous lockfile and deployment artifact. Rolling back reinstates the vulnerable version, so apply any documented mitigation while you fix forward.

## Unresolved questions
- Which deployments run an affected version?
- Exploitation status can change. Check again before lowering the priority.
- Mark the work resolved only after the fixed version is verified in production.

## Sources
- Verified: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-5pv5-xh52-hvrp (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-5pv5-xh52-hvrp lists affected ranges: crates.io coreutils >=0 <0.8.0)

Commands are suggestions: review each one before running it.