diff --git a/patch-delta.c b/patch-delta.c
index 56e0a5ede2..b937afd2c9 100644
--- a/patch-delta.c
+++ b/patch-delta.c
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ void *patch_delta(const void *src_buf, unsigned long src_size,
 			out += cp_size;
 			size -= cp_size;
 		} else if (cmd) {
-			if (cmd > size)
+			if (cmd > size || cmd > top - data)
 				break;
 			memcpy(out, data, cmd);
 			out += cmd;
diff --git a/t/t5303-pack-corruption-resilience.sh b/t/t5303-pack-corruption-resilience.sh
index 912e659acf..7114c31ade 100755
--- a/t/t5303-pack-corruption-resilience.sh
+++ b/t/t5303-pack-corruption-resilience.sh
@@ -341,7 +341,7 @@ test_expect_success \
 # \0 - empty base
 # \2 - two bytes in result
 # \2 - two literal bytes (we are short one)
-test_expect_failure \
+test_expect_success \
     'apply delta with too few literal bytes' \
     'printf "\0\2\2X" > truncated_delta &&
      test_must_fail test-tool delta -p /dev/null truncated_delta /dev/null'