CVE-2026-1757 Libxml2: memory leak leading to local denial of service in xmllint interactive shell
A memory leak in the xmllint interactive shell allows local attackers to exhaust system memory and cause a denial of service by repeatedly submitting whitespace input.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-1757?
CVE-2026-1757 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, published on 2 Feb 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A flaw was identified in the interactive shell of the xmllint utility, part of the libxml2 project, where memory allocated for user input is not properly released under certain conditions. When a user submits input consisting only of whitespace, the program skips command execution but fails to free the allocated buffer. Repeating this action causes memory to continuously accumulate. Over time, this can exhaust system memory and terminate the xmllint process, creating a denial-of-service condition on the local system.
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-1757?
How do I fix CVE-2026-1757?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2026-1757 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-1757 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-1757, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-1757, ECHO-c488-0c15-5961, GHSA-7qq5-wfv8-hvvh, OESA-2026-1774, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-1757.