XZ Utils provide a general-purpose data-compression library plus command-line tools. In XZ Utils 5.3.3alpha to 5.8.0, the multithreaded .xz decoder in liblzma has a bug where invalid input can at least result in a crash. The effects include heap use after free and writing to an address based on the null pointer plus an offset. Applications and libraries that use the lzma_stream_decoder_mt function are affected. The bug has been fixed in XZ Utils 5.8.1, and the fix has been committed to the v5.4, v5.6, v5.8, and master branches in the xz Git repository. No new release packages will be made from the old stable branches, but a standalone patch is available that applies to all affected releases.
Weakness
If two threads of execution use a resource simultaneously, there exists the possibility that resources may be used while invalid, in turn making the state of execution undefined.
Affected Software
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | RedHat | xz-1:5.6.2-4.el10_0 | * |
| Xz-utils | Ubuntu | devel | * |
| Xz-utils | Ubuntu | noble | * |
| Xz-utils | Ubuntu | oracular | * |
| Xz-utils | Ubuntu | plucky | * |
| Xz-utils | Ubuntu | upstream | * |
Potential Mitigations
Related Attack Patterns
References
- https://github.com/tukaani-project/xz/commit/d5a2ffe41bb77b918a8c96084885d4dbe4bf6480
- https://github.com/tukaani-project/xz/security/advisories/GHSA-6cc8-p5mm-29w2
- https://tukaani.org/xz/xz-cve-2025-31115.patch
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/04/03/1
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/04/03/2
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/04/03/3