Description
Out-of-bounds Write in the natural width branch of the text sizing protocol in kitty from 0.40.0 before 0.49.0 allows a program writing to the terminal to write past the end of a fixed-size buffer, because screen_handle_multicell_command() in kitty/screen.c appends each codepoint of a grapheme cluster with lc.chars[lc.count++] = ch without any capacity check, while lc is declared by the RAII_ListOfChars macro as a four-element char_type array in the function's stack frame, so an OSC 66 escape code whose payload carries a grapheme cluster longer than four codepoints writes beyond that buffer, one 32-bit value per additional codepoint, in the order the codepoints appear. Where the cluster is preceded in the same payload by a sequence that causes an intermediate flush, the buffer is first migrated to the heap by ensure_space_for_chars() and the write occurs past the heap allocation instead. This results in termination of the kitty process and therefore of all its windows, tabs and child processes.
Published: 2026-09-25
Score: 6.8 Medium
EPSS: n/a
KEV: No
Impact: n/a
Action: n/a
AI Analysis

No analysis available yet.

Remediation

Vendor Solution

Upgrade to kitty 0.49.0 or later.

Tracking

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Advisories

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History

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Out-of-bounds Write in the natural width branch of the text sizing protocol in kitty from 0.40.0 before 0.49.0 allows a program writing to the terminal to write past the end of a fixed-size buffer, because screen_handle_multicell_command() in kitty/screen.c appends each codepoint of a grapheme cluster with lc.chars[lc.count++] = ch without any capacity check, while lc is declared by the RAII_ListOfChars macro as a four-element char_type array in the function's stack frame, so an OSC 66 escape code whose payload carries a grapheme cluster longer than four codepoints writes beyond that buffer, one 32-bit value per additional codepoint, in the order the codepoints appear. Where the cluster is preceded in the same payload by a sequence that causes an intermediate flush, the buffer is first migrated to the heap by ensure_space_for_chars() and the write occurs past the heap allocation instead. This results in termination of the kitty process and therefore of all its windows, tabs and child processes.
Title Out-of-bounds write in the kitty text sizing protocol allows termination of the terminal process
First Time appeared Kovidgoyal
Kovidgoyal kitty
Weaknesses CWE-787
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:kovidgoyal:kitty:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Kovidgoyal
Kovidgoyal kitty
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 6.8, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N'}


Subscriptions

Kovidgoyal Kitty
cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: Secur0

Published:

Updated: 2026-09-25T13:23:51.590Z

Reserved: 2026-08-26T10:49:01.410Z

Link: CVE-2026-80431

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-09-25T14:17:19.253

Modified: 2026-09-25T14:17:19.253

Link: CVE-2026-80431

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses