USN-8202-1: jq vulnerabilities

USN-8202-1: jq vulnerabilities
Publication date: 23 April 2026
Overview: Several security issues were fixed in jq.

Packages
jq - lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor

Details
It was discovered that jq did not correctly handle certain string
concatenations. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial
of service or execute arbitrary code. This issue was addressed in Ubuntu
16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu
24.04 LTS and Ubuntu 25.10. (CVE-2026-32316)

It was discovered that jq did not correctly handle recursion in certain
circumstances. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial
of service. (CVE-2026-33947)

It was discovered that jq did not correctly handle improperly terminated
strings. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of
service or execute arbitrary code. This issue was addressed in Ubuntu 16.04
LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
and Ubuntu 25.10. (CVE-2026-33948)

It was discovered that jq did not correctly handle checking certain
variable types. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial
of service or leak sensitive information. This issue was addressed in
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS,
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and Ubuntu 25.10. (CVE-2026-39956)

It was discovered that jq did not correctly handle certain string
formatting. An attacker could possibly use this issue to leak sensitive
information or cause a denial of service. (CVE-2026-39979)

It was discovered that jq used a fixed seed for hash table operations. An
attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service. This
issue was addressed in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04
LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and Ubuntu 25.10. (CVE-2026-40164)

Update instructions
In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:

25.10 questing

• jq – 1.8.1-3ubuntu1.1
• libjq-dev – 1.8.1-3ubuntu1.1
• libjq1 – 1.8.1-3ubuntu1.1

24.04 LTS noble

• jq – 1.7.1-3ubuntu0.24.04.2
• libjq-dev – 1.7.1-3ubuntu0.24.04.2
• libjq1 – 1.7.1-3ubuntu0.24.04.2

22.04 LTS jammy

• jq – 1.6-2.1ubuntu3.2
• libjq-dev – 1.6-2.1ubuntu3.2
• libjq1 – 1.6-2.1ubuntu3.2

20.04 LTS focal

• jq – 1.6-1ubuntu0.20.04.1+esm2
• libjq-dev – 1.6-1ubuntu0.20.04.1+esm2
• libjq1 – 1.6-1ubuntu0.20.04.1+esm2

18.04 LTS bionic

• jq – 1.5+dfsg-2ubuntu0.1~esm2
• libjq-dev – 1.5+dfsg-2ubuntu0.1~esm2
• libjq1 – 1.5+dfsg-2ubuntu0.1~esm2

16.04 LTS xenial

• jq – 1.5+dfsg-1ubuntu0.1+esm4

14.04 LTS trusty

• jq – 1.3-1.1ubuntu1.1+esm4