CVE-2019-13638: Debian Linux

High severity, CVSS 7.8. EPSS: 4.5% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

GNU patch through 2.7.6 is vulnerable to OS shell command injection that can be exploited by opening a crafted patch file that contains an ed style diff payload with shell metacharacters. The ed editor does not need to be present on the vulnerable system. This is different from CVE-2018-1000156.

Affected products

• Debian Debian Linux: version 8.0 only; version 9.0 only; version 10.0 only
• GNU Patch: version 2.7.6 only

Published 2019-07-26. Last modified 2026-06-17.