CVE-2026-93990
Publication date 21 September 2026
Last updated 21 September 2026
Ubuntu priority
Cvss 3 Severity Score
Description
Expat through 2.8.4 fails to validate low surrogates following high surrogates in UTF-16 input, allowing malformed UTF-16 sequences to be accepted. Attackers can craft UTF-16 encoded XML with lone high surrogates that consume following code units, hiding markup characters from the parser and enabling XML injection attacks.
Status
| Package | Ubuntu Release | Status |
|---|---|---|
| expat | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Needs evaluation
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 14.04 LTS trusty |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| apache2 | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Not affected
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Not affected
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Not affected
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Not affected
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Not affected
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Not affected
|
|
| 14.04 LTS trusty |
Not affected
|
|
| apr-util | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Not affected
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Not affected
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Not affected
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Not affected
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Not affected
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Not affected
|
|
| 14.04 LTS trusty |
Not affected
|
|
| cmake | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Not affected
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Not affected
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Not affected
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Not affected
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Not affected
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Not affected
|
|
| ghostscript | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Not affected
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Not affected
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Not affected
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Not affected
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Not affected
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Not affected
|
|
| texlive-bin | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Not affected
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Not affected
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Not affected
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Not affected
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Not affected
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Not affected
|
|
| xmlrpc-c | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Needs evaluation
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 14.04 LTS trusty |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| vnc4 | 26.04 LTS resolute | Not in release |
| 24.04 LTS noble | Not in release | |
| 22.04 LTS jammy | Not in release | |
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 14.04 LTS trusty |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| wbxml2 | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Needs evaluation
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| swish-e | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Needs evaluation
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| insighttoolkit4 | 26.04 LTS resolute | Not in release |
| 24.04 LTS noble | Not in release | |
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| cadaver | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Needs evaluation
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| gdcm | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Not affected
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Not affected
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Not affected
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Not affected
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 14.04 LTS trusty |
Not affected
|
|
| ayttm | 26.04 LTS resolute | Not in release |
| 24.04 LTS noble | Not in release | |
| 22.04 LTS jammy | Not in release | |
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| cableswig | 26.04 LTS resolute | Not in release |
| 24.04 LTS noble | Not in release | |
| 22.04 LTS jammy | Not in release | |
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| coin3 | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Not affected
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Not affected
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Not affected
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Not affected
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 14.04 LTS trusty |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| matanza | 26.04 LTS resolute | Ignored |
| 24.04 LTS noble | Ignored | |
| 22.04 LTS jammy | Ignored | |
| 20.04 LTS focal | Ignored | |
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| tdom | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Needs evaluation
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| vtk | 26.04 LTS resolute | Not in release |
| 24.04 LTS noble | Not in release | |
| 22.04 LTS jammy | Not in release | |
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 14.04 LTS trusty |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| smart | 26.04 LTS resolute | Not in release |
| 24.04 LTS noble | Not in release | |
| 22.04 LTS jammy | Not in release | |
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| firefox | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Not affected
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Not affected
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Not affected
|
|
| thunderbird | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Not affected
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Not affected
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Not affected
|
|
| libxmltok | 26.04 LTS resolute | Not in release |
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
Notes
sbeattie
paraview uses system expat xotcl uses system expat poco uses system expat gdcm uses system expat audacity uses system expat simgear uses system expat coin3 uses system expat as of 4.0.0~CMake~6f54f1602475+ds1-1 sitecopy uses system expat since 1:0.16.0-1 (dapper!) insighttoolkit uses system expat as of 4.12.1-dfsg1
mdeslaur
apache2 uses system expat apr-util uses system expat cmake uses system expat ghostscript uses system expat firefox uses system expat thunderbird uses system expat matanza embeds an expat fork to parse its own config file, there is no attack vector there, we will not be fixing matanza.
Severity score breakdown
CVSS version:
Base score
8.7 · High
Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Base score
7.5 · High
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
References
Other references
- https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-93990
- https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/pull/1282
- https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat
- https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/commit/ff6e1d7e750bbe245178f51a47a965dc8342861a
- https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/expat-through-2.8.4-malformed-utf-16-acceptance-via-unchecked-surrogate