Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-22184 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-22184 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-22184?
- High severity, with a CVSS score of 7.8, published 7 January 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 8; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 9.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-22184?
- A patch was published on 2026-02-17: zlib version 1.3.2 released removing the affected utility Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is CVE-2026-22184 attacked?
- It is attacked with local access, in a software library.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-22184?
- Check whether you run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
A global buffer overflow exists in the TGZfname() function of the zlib 'untgz' utility, located in the contrib directory. The flaw is caused by an unbounded strcpy() call that copies a user-supplied archive name from the command line into a fixed-size 1024-byte static global buffer without length validation. An attacker can exploit this by providing a filename argument exceeding 1024 bytes, leading to an out-of-bounds write. This can result in memory corruption of adjacent global objects, denial of service, or potential arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability was addressed in zlib version 1.3.2 by removing the untgz utility from the contrib directory.
Affected products
- zlib zlib up to and including 1.3.1.2
- Red Hat Logging Subsystem for Red Hat OpenShift 5
- Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 10
- Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 8
- Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 9
Timeline
- 2025-12-29: disclosed: Initial disclosure on Full Disclosure mailing list
- 2026-01-07: advisory: NVD and VulnCheck advisories published
- 2026-02-17: patched: zlib version 1.3.2 released removing the affected utility
References
- https://github.com/madler/zlib
- https://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2026/Jan/3
- https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/zlib-untgz-global-buffer-overflow-in-tgzfname
- https://zlib.net/
- https://github.com/madler/zlib/issues/1142
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-22184
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2427688