CVE-2026-48961 Denial of service in IO::Compress
A bug in the zipdetails CLI tool causes a crash when processing specific ZIP files, leading to denial of service for users of the tool.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-48961?
CVE-2026-48961 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in PMQS IO::Compress, published on 27 May 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
IO::Compress versions from 2.207 before 2.220 for Perl ship a zipdetails CLI tool that crashes with undefined subroutine on Info-ZIP Unix Extra Field with 8-byte UID or GID.
When decode_ux() in bin/zipdetails handles an Info-ZIP Unix Extra Field (tag 0x7875) with UID Size or GID Size set to 8, causing zipdetails to decode an 8-byte UID or GID value, it dispatches through decodeLitteEndian(), which calls a misnamed helper unpackValueQ. The actual function defined in the same file is unpackValue_Q (with underscore); the call raises 'Undefined subroutine &main::unpackValueQ' and the script exits with status 255.
Library callers of IO::Compress and IO::Uncompress are not affected; the defect is in the bundled CLI tool.
Weakness: CWE-755
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-48961?
Linux distribution packages (1)
perl-IO-Compress openSUSE:Tumbleweed | All versions | 2.220.0-2.1 |
How do I fix CVE-2026-48961?
Upgrade to a fixed version.
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-2026-48961 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-48961 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-48961, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-48961, ECHO-3bd6-6520-0759, GHSA-hjrw-gmwj-xc9c, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2026-48961, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-48961 and 1 more.