Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-96269 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-96269 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-96269?
- Informational severity, published 22 September 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Gnu Emacs 28.1 through 31.1.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-96269?
- No fixed version is recorded yet. Check the vendor's advisory in the references below. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.
- How is CVE-2026-96269 attacked?
- It is attacked with local access, in a software library.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-96269?
- Check whether you run Gnu Emacs 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
The vulnerability occurs in the intern and unintern functions, which respect the read-symbol-shorthands buffer-local variable during symbol name resolution. An untrusted value of read-symbol-shorthands in a crafted file can cause the functions to resolve symbol names differently than intended, allowing code execution. The default Emacs configuration is affected without requiring explicit user settings.
Affected products
- GNU Emacs 28.1 through 31.1
Timeline
- 2026-09-22: disclosed
- 2026-03-08: other: Bug reported upstream