# CVE-2026-75820: Integer Truncation Leading to Heap Corruption in GNU Aspell

> An attacker can cause denial of service in GNU Aspell by tricking a user into loading a crafted personal wordlist, triggering heap corruption via integer truncation.

- **Severity:** Low 1.8 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:L/SA:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 6 Oct 2026
- **Updated:** 6 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-105966, BELL-CVE-2026-75820, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-75820, ECHO-942f-3e07-cfce, GHSA-7gjr-5wh9-g7w9, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-75820

## What is CVE-2026-75820?

CVE-2026-75820 is a low-severity vulnerability in GNU Aspell, published on 6 Oct 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

GNU Aspell contains an integer truncation vulnerability in the WritableDict::add() function in modules/speller/default/writable.cpp. When loading a personal wordlist, the word length is stored as a single byte, causing truncation for words whose length is a multiple of 256. This leads to heap corruption. An attacker can exploit this by convincing a user to run aspell with a crafted personal wordlist containing such a word, resulting in denial of service.

This issue was fixed in commit 782ce94e4dc71eaec4ee1bd945eb3b9c47c5387d which will be released in version 0.60.8.3.

Weakness: CWE-190 (Integer Overflow or Wraparound)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-75820?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-75820?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2026-75820 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-75820 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-75820 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-75820 is a low-severity vulnerability in GNU Aspell, published on 6 Oct 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-75820 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: GNU Aspell. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-75820/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-75820/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-75820
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-75820
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-75820

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-75820/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.