CVE-2026-38752 Denial of service in BusyBox

Low 2.9 Published 15 Jul 2026 Updated 20 Jul 2026

Attackers can cause a Denial of Service in BusyBox by supplying a crafted AWK script that triggers a stack overflow.

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-2026-38752?

CVE-2026-38752 is a low-severity denial of service vulnerability in BusyBox, published on 15 Jul 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

A stack overflow in the evaluate() function (editors/awk.c) of BusyBox commit 371fe9 allows attackers to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) via supplying a crafted AWK script.

Weakness: CWE-121, CWE-674

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-38752?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Busybox Busybox.

How do I fix CVE-2026-38752?

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-2026-38752 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-38752 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

Also known as AZL-92835, BELL-CVE-2026-38752, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-38752, ECHO-9efd-d326-a8a6, GHSA-fj27-x67r-v4g5, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-38752.