OS Command Injection in Gnu Bison (CVE-2026-56389)
Summary
OS command injection in Gnu Bison (CVE-2026-56389). Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover.
Original description
The description as published by the source.
GNU Bison allows for an execution of an arbitrary program during HTML report generation due to improper handling of grammar-defined configuration variables. A grammar file can override the executable used for the XML‑to‑HTML transformation step via %define tool.xsltproc, which is accepted without restriction and passed directly to execvp().
When running bison --html on a attacker-provided grammar, this behavior allows execution of an arbitrary program with the privileges of the Bison process.
Maintainers of this project were notified about this vulnerability, and fixed the issue in commit 3169c1e7a2c6acc4c59dfcf8b089896d6881925b. However, they did not provide vulnerable version range. Version 3.8.2 was tested and confirmed as vulnerable, other versions were not tested but might also be vulnerable.
Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database NVD GitHub Advisory
Auto-generated summary
Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.
A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-56389 has been found in Gnu Bison.
Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover. CVSS score: 8.6/10.
What to do: apply the vendor's official patched release.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Gnu Bison CVE-2026-56389" on the vendor's site.
CVE-2026-56389 (Gnu Bison) — CWE-78 / CVSS v3 8.6
Attack vector: local / unauthenticated
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.
OS command injection (CWE-78) exists in Gnu Bison.
Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of Gnu Bison.
Severity: High (CVSS 8.6/10). Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover.
Update to the patched release per vendor advisory.
Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.
Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'Bison' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.
Response actions
Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order
-
1Identify exposure identify
grep -r 'Bison' . | grep -v node_modulesリポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で
Bisonを grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。 -
2Post-deployment verification verify
Confirm patched version is live in productionパッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。
References
- web cert.pl
- web cvd@cert.pl
- web cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org
- web nvd.nist.gov
- web cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org
- web github.com