CVE-2026-6846 Red Hat CVE debrief

Who should care

System administrators, build and release engineers, developers, and security teams who use GNU binutils or process untrusted object files—especially in environments that build, inspect, or link third-party XCOFF content. Red Hat customers should also check the linked vendor advisory and product applicability.

Technical summary

The issue is classified as CWE-122 (heap-based buffer overflow). NVD reports CVSS 3.1 AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H, indicating a local attack path that depends on user interaction. The vulnerable behavior occurs during linking of a specially crafted XCOFF object file, so workflows that open, inspect, or build with untrusted object files are the primary exposure point.

Defensive priority

High. The attack requires user interaction, but the potential impact includes code execution and full confidentiality/integrity/availability compromise. Prioritize remediation in any environment that processes untrusted or third-party object files, or where binutils is part of automated build pipelines.

Recommended defensive actions

• Check whether your systems use GNU binutils at or below the affected version range reported by NVD (through 2.46).
• Review the Red Hat advisory and bug tracking reference for package-specific fix status and backport availability.
• Limit handling of untrusted XCOFF object files and treat externally supplied build artifacts as potentially malicious.
• Apply vendor patches or upgraded packages as soon as they are available for your distribution or product.
• If patching is delayed, reduce exposure by restricting who can run the affected linking workflows and by isolating build or analysis environments.
• Validate any Red Hat platform entries listed by NVD against your actual installed components before assuming impact.

Evidence notes

This debrief is based only on the supplied NVD/NVD-modified record and the referenced official/vendor links. The record identifies the flaw as a heap-buffer-overflow in binutils during XCOFF linking, assigns CWE-122, and records CVSS 3.1 AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H. NVD also lists GNU binutils through 2.46 and several Red Hat-related CPEs. No additional product-fix details were supplied in the corpus.

Official resources