Bug 2508369 (CVE-2026-56389)

Summary:	CVE-2026-56389 bison: GNU Bison: Arbitrary Code Execution via malicious grammar file
Product:	[Other] Security Response	Reporter:	OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component:	vulnerability	Assignee:	Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	unspecified	CC:	akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Security
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
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Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	---
Doc Text:	A flaw was found in GNU Bison. During HTML report generation, the software improperly handles grammar-defined configuration variables. An attacker can provide a specially crafted grammar file that overrides the executable used for XML-to-HTML transformation. This allows for the execution of an arbitrary program with the privileges of the Bison process, leading to arbitrary code execution.	Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
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oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:	2516215
Bug Blocks:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-07-29 11:01:28 UTC

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.