The SyncTeX parser (synctex_parser.c) shipped with TeX Live and embedded by downstream consumers such as GNOME Evince contains a heap use-after-free vulnerability that allows attackers to crash applications or potentially execute arbitrary code by supplying a malformed .synctex or .synctex.gz file. A malformed SyncTeX file can construct a ref node with a NULL parent pointer, causing the replacement routine to fail to detach the node from its sibling chain, which triggers recursive freeing of live tree nodes and leaves dangling pointers that are later accessed by the parser during document load.

The SyncTeX parser (synctex_parser.c) shipped with TeX Live and embedded by downstream consumers such as GNOME Evince contains a heap use-after-free vulnerability that allows attackers to crash applications or potentially execute arbitrary code by supplying a malformed .synctex or .synctex.gz file. A malformed SyncTeX file can construct a ref node with a NULL parent pointer, causing the replacement routine to fail to detach the node from its sibling chain, which triggers recursive freeing of live tree nodes and leaves dangling pointers that are later accessed by the parser during document load.

Affected: openEuler:20.03-LTS-SP4: texlive-base, openEuler:22.03-LTS-SP4: texlive-base, openEuler:24.03-LTS-SP1: texlive-base, openEuler:24.03-LTS-SP3: texlive-base, openEuler:24.03-LTS-SP4: texlive-base

The TeX Live software distribution offers a complete TeX system for a variety of Unix, Macintosh, Windows and other platforms. It encompasses programs for editing, typesetting, previewing and printing of TeX documents in many different languages, and a large collection of TeX macros and font libraries. Security Fix(es):

The SyncTeX parser (synctex_parser.c) shipped with TeX Live and embedded by downstream consumers such as GNOME Evince contains a heap use-after-free vulnerability that allows attackers to crash applications or potentially execute arbitrary code by supplying a malformed .synctex or .synctex.gz file. A malformed SyncTeX file can construct a ref node with a NULL parent pointer, causing the replacement routine to fail to detach the node from its sibling chain, which triggers recursive freeing of live tree nodes and leaves dangling pointers that are later accessed by the parser during document load.(CVE-2026-63729)

evince-48.4-2.1 on GA media

Security update for texlive

Affected: Ubuntu:Pro:16.04:LTS: texlive-bin, Ubuntu:Pro:18.04:LTS: texlive-bin, Ubuntu:Pro:20.04:LTS: texlive-bin, Ubuntu:22.04:LTS: texlive-bin, Ubuntu:24.04:LTS: texlive-bin, Ubuntu:26.04:LTS: texlive-bin

The SyncTeX parser (synctex_parser.c) shipped with TeX Live and embedded by downstream consumers such as GNOME Evince contains a heap use-after-free vulnerability that allows attackers to crash applications or potentially execute arbitrary code by supplying a malformed .synctex or .synctex.gz file. A malformed SyncTeX file can construct a ref node with a NULL parent pointer, causing the replacement routine to fail to detach the node from its sibling chain, which triggers recursive freeing of live tree nodes and leaves dangling pointers that are later accessed by the parser during document load.