CVE-2026-18743: A flaw was found in popt
CVE-2026-18743 analysis covering impact, affected products, versions, remediation, and cross-checked defender guidance.
CVE-2026-18743 is a vulnerability published by NVD on 9/1/2026.
What happened
A flaw was found in popt. This vulnerability allows an attacker to provide specially crafted configuration content to a host, which, when loaded, can lead to a small memory corruption issue. This occurs because of an error in how the `poptConfigFileToString` function reallocates memory for buffers. Successful exploitation could result in heap metadata corruption, potentially causing the affected process to become unavailable (denial of service).
Affected products and versions
- NVD has not published a normalized affected-product configuration yet.
Severity and weakness
CVSS: LOW 2.5. Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L.
Weaknesses: CWE-131.
Known exploitation
No CISA KEV entry is currently attached to the NVD record.
What defenders should do
- Identify whether the affected product and version range exists in production.
- Review vendor advisories and release notes before change windows.
- Patch, upgrade, disable the vulnerable component, or apply vendor mitigations.
- Verify the running version after deployment, not only the package inventory.
Official and supporting references
- No vendor advisory tagged by NVD at draft time.