CVE-2025-5278

MEDIUMPre-NVD 4.44.4—
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

Score 4.4 from GitHub Security Advisory published 2025-05-27. a secondary CVSS source baseline 4.4; sources differ by 0.0.

Triggered by: GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
Sources: epss, ghsa, secondary
4.4EG
EchelonGraph verdictMonitorLow exploitation likelihood right now — keep watching.
  • Lower severity and no public exploit yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS PROB: 0%CVSS: 4.4Exploit: None knownExposed: 0

A fix is available — apply it.

A flaw was found in GNU Coreutils. The sort utility's begfield() function is vulnerable to a heap buffer under-read. The program may access memory outside the allocated buffer if a user runs a crafted command using the traditional key format. A malicious input could lead to a crash or leak sensitive data.

CVSS v3
4.4
EG Score
4.4(medium)
EG Risk
20(Track)
EG Risk 20/100SSVC: Track

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).

How it’s computed
Severity44% × 45%
Exploitation0% × 40%
Automatability0% × 15%
Action: Routine — remediate on your standard cadence.
EPSS PROB
0%
EPSS %ILE
22%
KEV
Not listed

Published

May 27, 2025

Last Modified

September 8, 2026

Advisory Details (9)

Auto-updated Jun 27, 2026
🔬 Proof of concept available. Patch available. Sources: redhat.
generic

NEWS - coreutils.git - GNU coreutils

https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/tree/NEWS?id=8c9602e3a145e9596dc1a63c6ed67865814b6633#n14
generic

coreutils.git - GNU coreutils

https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/commit/?id=8c9602e3a145e9596dc1a63c6ed67865814b6633
generic

oss-security - Re: CVE-2025-5278: Heap Buffer Overflow in GNU Coreutils sort

http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/05/29/2
generic

oss-security - Re: CVE-2025-5278: Heap Buffer Overflow in GNU Coreutils sort

http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/05/29/1
generic

oss-security - CVE-2025-5278: Heap Buffer Overflow in GNU Coreutils sort

http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/05/27/2
generic🟡 PoC Available

#78507 - [Security] Heap Buffer Overflow in GNU Coreutils sort (CWE-122) - GNU bug report logs

https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=78507
redhat Patch Available

2368764 – (CVE-2025-5278) CVE-2025-5278 coreutils: Heap Buffer Under-Read in GNU Coreutils sort via Key Specification

Affected: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2368764
redhat Patch Available

cve-details

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-5278
redhat Patch Available

Affected: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:28911

Vendor Advisories for CVE-2025-5278(11)

These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.

Patch Availability(11)

Vendor / EcosystemFixed in / PatchReleasedSource
ubuntucoreutils (9.4-3ubuntu6.3) @ noble2026-09-08ubuntu
redhatrhui5/rhua-tp-rhel9:17872412602026-08-24redhat
redhatrhosdt/opentelemetry-rhel9-operator:17857045472026-08-04redhat
redhatdiscovery/discovery-server-rhel9:17848216702026-07-27redhat
redhatrhui5/rhua-rhel9:17847950762026-07-23redhat
redhatcostmanagement/costmanagement-metrics-rhel9-operator:17835391562026-07-15redhat
redhatinsights-proxy/insights-proxy-container-rhel9:17828905032026-07-01redhat
redhatrhosdt/tempo-rhel9-operator:17825011952026-06-30redhat
redhatdiscovery/discovery-ui-rhel9:17827565412026-06-29redhat
redhatcoreutils-0:9.5-8.el10_22026-06-29redhat
redhatcoreutils-0:8.32-41.el9_82026-06-24redhat

Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.

Affected Packages

(4 across 4 ecosystems)
Debian:11(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
coreutils8.32-4 ... 9.7-3 (14 versions)——
Debian:12(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
coreutils9.1-1 ... 9.7-3 (12 versions)——
Debian:13(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
coreutils9.10-1, 9.7-3——
Debian:14(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
coreutils9.10-1, 9.7-3——

Weakness Classification(1)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

Additional Vendor Advisories

(2)

Vendors that published advisories for this CVE beyond the curated set above. Broader coverage but minimal per-row detail — click through for the original advisory.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 6× in last 7d / 86× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

Showing the most recent 100 of 350 total refreshes for this CVE.

  1. 2026-09-18 19:27 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-09-17 19:30 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-09-16 14:07 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-09-15 03:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-09-13 16:46 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-09-12 15:00 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-09-11 14:52 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-09-11 09:36 UTCEPSS rescore
  9. 2026-09-10 09:34 UTCEPSS rescore
  10. 2026-09-08 22:00 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-09-08 16:15 UTCVendor advisory
  12. 2026-09-08 16:15 UTCGHSA enrichment
  13. 2026-09-07 23:35 UTCEG score recompute
  14. 2026-09-07 23:35 UTCVendor advisory
  15. 2026-09-07 23:35 UTCGHSA enrichment
  16. 2026-09-07 22:32 UTCEG score recompute
  17. 2026-09-07 22:32 UTCVendor advisory
  18. 2026-09-07 22:32 UTCGHSA enrichment
  19. 2026-09-06 22:32 UTCEG score recompute
  20. 2026-09-06 22:32 UTCVendor advisory
  21. 2026-09-06 22:32 UTCGHSA enrichment
  22. 2026-09-06 21:55 UTCEG score recompute
  23. 2026-09-06 21:55 UTCVendor advisory
  24. 2026-09-06 21:55 UTCGHSA enrichment
  25. 2026-09-06 21:30 UTCEG score recompute
Show 75 more
  1. 2026-09-06 21:30 UTCVendor advisory
  2. 2026-09-06 21:30 UTCGHSA enrichment
  3. 2026-09-06 20:24 UTCEG score recompute
  4. 2026-09-06 20:24 UTCVendor advisory
  5. 2026-09-06 20:24 UTCGHSA enrichment
  6. 2026-09-06 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-09-06 04:25 UTCEG score recompute
  8. 2026-09-06 04:25 UTCVendor advisory
  9. 2026-09-06 04:25 UTCGHSA enrichment
  10. 2026-09-06 03:25 UTCEG score recompute
  11. 2026-09-06 03:25 UTCVendor advisory
  12. 2026-09-06 03:25 UTCGHSA enrichment
  13. 2026-09-05 16:25 UTCEG score recompute
  14. 2026-09-05 16:25 UTCVendor advisory
  15. 2026-09-05 16:25 UTCGHSA enrichment
  16. 2026-09-05 16:17 UTCEG score recompute
  17. 2026-09-05 16:17 UTCVendor advisory
  18. 2026-09-05 16:16 UTCGHSA enrichment
  19. 2026-09-04 05:06 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-09-02 14:11 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-09-01 13:53 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-09-01 12:32 UTCEG score recompute
  23. 2026-09-01 12:32 UTCVendor advisory
  24. 2026-09-01 12:32 UTCGHSA enrichment
  25. 2026-09-01 11:57 UTCEG score recompute
  26. 2026-09-01 11:57 UTCVendor advisory
  27. 2026-09-01 11:57 UTCGHSA enrichment
  28. 2026-08-31 16:43 UTCEG score recompute
  29. 2026-08-31 16:43 UTCVendor advisory
  30. 2026-08-31 16:43 UTCGHSA enrichment
  31. 2026-08-31 15:09 UTCEG score recompute
  32. 2026-08-31 15:09 UTCVendor advisory
  33. 2026-08-31 15:09 UTCGHSA enrichment
  34. 2026-08-30 19:16 UTCEPSS rescore
  35. 2026-08-30 01:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  36. 2026-08-28 21:40 UTCEPSS rescore
  37. 2026-08-27 14:24 UTCEPSS rescore
  38. 2026-08-26 14:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  39. 2026-08-25 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore
  40. 2026-08-25 10:23 UTCEG score recompute
  41. 2026-08-25 10:23 UTCVendor advisory
  42. 2026-08-25 10:23 UTCGHSA enrichment
  43. 2026-08-25 09:57 UTCEG score recompute
  44. 2026-08-25 09:57 UTCVendor advisory
  45. 2026-08-25 09:57 UTCGHSA enrichment
  46. 2026-08-24 14:16 UTCEPSS rescore
  47. 2026-08-23 21:27 UTCEG score recompute
  48. 2026-08-23 21:27 UTCVendor advisory
  49. 2026-08-23 21:27 UTCGHSA enrichment
  50. 2026-08-23 20:26 UTCEG score recompute
  51. 2026-08-23 20:26 UTCVendor advisory
  52. 2026-08-23 20:26 UTCGHSA enrichment
  53. 2026-08-23 00:18 UTCEPSS rescore
  54. 2026-08-21 23:48 UTCEPSS rescore
  55. 2026-08-21 13:24 UTCEG score recompute
  56. 2026-08-21 13:24 UTCVendor advisory
  57. 2026-08-21 13:24 UTCGHSA enrichment
  58. 2026-08-21 12:51 UTCEG score recompute
  59. 2026-08-21 12:51 UTCVendor advisory
  60. 2026-08-21 12:51 UTCGHSA enrichment
  61. 2026-08-20 22:55 UTCEPSS rescore
  62. 2026-08-19 17:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  63. 2026-08-19 02:20 UTCEG score recompute
  64. 2026-08-19 02:20 UTCVendor advisory
  65. 2026-08-19 02:20 UTCGHSA enrichment
  66. 2026-08-18 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  67. 2026-08-18 09:29 UTCEG score recompute
  68. 2026-08-18 09:29 UTCVendor advisory
  69. 2026-08-18 09:29 UTCGHSA enrichment
  70. 2026-08-18 08:51 UTCEG score recompute
  71. 2026-08-18 08:51 UTCVendor advisory
  72. 2026-08-18 08:51 UTCGHSA enrichment
  73. 2026-08-17 13:46 UTCEPSS rescore
  74. 2026-08-17 13:23 UTCEG score recompute
  75. 2026-08-17 13:23 UTCVendor advisory

Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2025-5278?
CVE-2025-5278 is a medium vulnerability published on May 27, 2025. A flaw was found in GNU Coreutils. The sort utility's begfield() function is vulnerable to a heap buffer under-read. The program may access memory outside the allocated buffer if a user runs a crafted command using the traditional key format. A malicious input could lead to a crash or leak…
When was CVE-2025-5278 disclosed?
CVE-2025-5278 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on May 27, 2025, with the most recent update on September 8, 2026. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2025-5278 actively exploited?
CVE-2025-5278 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, which ranks it in the top 78.3% of all scored CVEs.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2025-5278?
CVE-2025-5278 has a CVSS v3 base score of 4.4 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2025-5278?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2025-5278, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

Dependency Blast Radius

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