CVE-2015-7500

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Last Modified: UTC

Description

A denial of service flaw was found in libxml2. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to crash.

A denial of service flaw was found in libxml2. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to crash.

Additional information

  • Bugzilla 1281943: libxml2: Heap buffer overflow in xmlParseMisc
  • CWE-122: Heap-based Buffer Overflow
  • FAQ: Frequently asked questions about CVE-2015-7500

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

CVSS v2 Score Breakdown
Red HatNVD

CVSS v2 Base Score

4.3

5

Attack Vector

Network

Network

Access Complexity

Medium

Low

Authentication

None

None

Confidentiality Impact

None

None

Integrity Impact

None

None

Availability Impact

Partial

Partial

CVSS v2 Vector

Red Hat: AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

NVD: AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

CWE-122

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)

Buffer overflows generally lead to crashes. Other attacks leading to lack of availability are possible, including putting the program into an infinite loop.

Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability,Access Control

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Bypass Protection Mechanism; Modify Memory

Buffer overflows often can be used to execute arbitrary code, which is usually outside the scope of a program's implicit security policy. Besides important user data, heap-based overflows can be used to overwrite function pointers that may be living in memory, pointing it to the attacker's code. Even in applications that do not explicitly use function pointers, the run-time will usually leave many in memory. For example, object methods in C++ are generally implemented using function pointers. Even in C programs, there is often a global offset table used by the underlying runtime.

Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability,Access Control,Other

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Bypass Protection Mechanism; Other

When the consequence is arbitrary code execution, this can often be used to subvert any other security service.

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank the GNOME project for reporting this issue. Upstream acknowledges Kostya Serebryany as the original reporter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?

My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?

What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?

What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?

What is a mitigation?

I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?

Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?

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