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.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kovid Goyal | kitty | 0.40.0 – < 0.49.0 | 0.49.0 |
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | kitty | No fix yet | — |
| Debian 13 | kitty | No fix yet | — |
| Debian 12 | kitty | No fix yet | — |
Ubuntu
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 26.10 | kitty | No fix yet | — |
Show 4 more (older releases, extended support, other products)Fewer releases
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu Pro 26.04 LTS | kitty | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS | kitty | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu Pro 22.04 LTS | kitty | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS | kitty | No fix yet | — |
References
- https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/commit/7d2fbaadcc2b1eeeef89bd875ec622b42362574b patch
- https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/releases/tag/v0.49.0 release-notes
- https://secur0.com/en/cna/cve-list/cve-2026-80431-kitty-text-sizing-out-of-bounds-write third-party-advisory technical-description