CVE-2026-35369 uutils coreutils kill System-wide Process Termination and Denial of Service via Argument Misinterpretation
Attackers can cause system-wide process termination and denial of service by exploiting an argument parsing error in the kill utility.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-35369?
CVE-2026-35369 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Uutils coreutils, published on 22 Apr 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
An argument parsing error in the kill utility of uutils coreutils incorrectly interprets kill -1 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, potentially leading to a system crash or massive process termination. This differs from GNU coreutils, which correctly recognizes -1 as a signal number in this context and would instead report a missing PID argument.
Weakness: CWE-20
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-35369?
2 open source packages ship an affected version, including uu_kill. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
uu_kill crates.io | All versions | 0.6.0 |
uu_kill crates.io | All versions | 0.6.0 |
Products include Uutils Coreutils.
How do I fix CVE-2026-35369?
Upgrade uu_kill to 0.6.0 or later.
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-2026-35369 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-35369 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Uutils coreutils
- CVE-2026-35338 uutils coreutils chmod Path Traversal Bypass of --preserve-root
- CVE-2026-35368 uutils coreutils chroot Local Privilege Escalation and chroot Escape in via Name Service Switch (NSS) Injection
- CVE-2026-35341 uutils coreutils mkfifo Unauthorized Permission Change on Existing Files
- CVE-2026-35352 uutils coreutils mkfifo Privilege Escalation via TOCTOU Race Condition
- CVE-2026-35349 uutils coreutils Path-Based Safety Bypass with --preserve-root
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-35369, GHSA-p6rv-2qpm-fwvg, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-35369.