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 cae9402.
Reported by Zellic in the uutils coreutils Program Security Assessment (prepared for Canonical, Jan 20 2026), audited commit 3a07ffc5a9bd4c283e75afa548ba1f1957bad242. Finding 3.70. Credit: Zellic.
kill -1is incorrectly parsed as a positionalpid = -1; combined with the default SIGTERM this callskill(-1, SIGTERM), signaling nearly every process the caller can see. GNUkillrecognizes-1/-9as signals and reports "not enough arguments".Impact: a user running
kill -1mass-terminates processes, potentially crashing the system. Recommendation: parse-Nas a signal number, and error with "not enough arguments" when no PID is given.Remediation: Acknowledged by Canonical; fixed in commit cae9402.
Reported by Zellic in the uutils coreutils Program Security Assessment (prepared for Canonical, Jan 20 2026), audited commit
3a07ffc5a9bd4c283e75afa548ba1f1957bad242. Finding 3.70. Credit: Zellic.