GHSA-p6rv-2qpm-fwvg is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) Improper Input Validation vulnerability in uu_kill. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-p6rv-2qpm-fwvg is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
kill: 'kill -1' parsed as PID -1, sending SIGTERM to all processes (system crash / DoS)
Real-World Exposure
uu_killReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
kill -1 is incorrectly parsed as a positional pid = -1; combined with the default SIGTERM this calls kill(-1, SIGTERM), signaling nearly every process the caller can see. GNU kill recognizes -1/-9 as signals and reports "not enough arguments".
$ kill -1 # uutils: kill(-1, SIGTERM) -> mass termination / crash
$ kill -1 # GNU: kill: not enough arguments
Impact: a user running kill -1 mass-terminates processes, potentially crashing the system. Recommendation: parse -N as a signal number, and error with "not enough arguments" when no PID is given.
Remediation: Acknowledged by Canonical; fixed in commit cae94028.
Reported by Zellic in the uutils coreutils Program Security Assessment (prepared for Canonical, Jan 20 2026), audited commit 3a07ffc5a9bd4c283e75afa548ba1f1957bad242. Finding 3.70. Credit: Zellic.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | uu_kill | all versions | 0.6.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for uu_kill. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update uu_kill to 0.6.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-p6rv-2qpm-fwvg is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-p6rv-2qpm-fwvg is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to GHSA-p6rv-2qpm-fwvg. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-p6rv-2qpm-fwvg in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-p6rv-2qpm-fwvg across crates.io dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.