CVE-2026-19487 Affecting perl package, versions <5.42.2-3


Severity

Recommended
low

Based on default assessment until relevant scores are available.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.42% (35th percentile)

Do your applications use this vulnerable package?

In a few clicks we can analyze your entire application and see what components are vulnerable in your application, and suggest you quick fixes.

Test your applications
  • Snyk IDSNYK-DEBIANUNSTABLE-PERL-18781301
  • published14 Aug 2026
  • disclosed13 Aug 2026

Introduced: 13 Aug 2026

NewCVE-2026-19487  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade Debian:unstable perl to version 5.42.2-3 or higher.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream perl package and not the perl package as distributed by Debian. See How to fix? for Debian:unstable relevant fixed versions and status.

Perl versions from 5.9.4 before 5.41.9 produce incorrect regular expression match results when a stale failure flag ends the Aho-Corasick prescan early in S_find_byclass.

The prescan walks the subject for positions where the full pattern could match, and the engine tries it from the leftmost one recorded. A failing transition sets the failed flag, and a later successful transition does not clear it, so the prescan reads the stale flag as a failure and stops before it can record a candidate that starts earlier. It takes a subject where one candidate is recorded and a later character then forces a fallback through a fail link that succeeds.

Example:

"ABCDE" =~ m/ABCF|BCDE|C/; # matches C at offset 2, not BCDE "ABCDE" =~ m/ABCF|BCDE|C(G)/; # no match, BCDE missed

An alternation like this can miss input it should match, or match it on the wrong branch, so an access or filtering decision made from the result can be wrong.