CVE-2014-3696
Description
A denial of service flaw was found in the way Pidgin parsed Groupwise server messages. A malicious remote server or a man-in-the-middle attacker could potentially use this flaw to cause Pidgin to consume an excessive amount of memory, possibly leading to a crash, by sending a specially crafted message.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert: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 v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 4.3 | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | N/A |
| Privileges Required | None | N/A | N/A |
| User Interaction | Required | N/A | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | N/A |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | N/A |
| Availability Impact | Low | N/A | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CVSS v2 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 5 | 5 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Network | Network | N/A |
| Access Complexity | Low | Low | N/A |
| Authentication | None | None | N/A |
| Confidentiality Impact | None | None | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | None | N/A |
| Availability Impact | Partial | Partial | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: AV:N/AC:L/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)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)
When allocating resources without limits, an attacker could prevent other systems, applications, or processes from accessing the same type of resource. It can be easy for an attacker to consume many resources by rapidly making many requests or causing larger resources to be used than is needed.
Acknowledgements
Red Hat would like to thank the Pidgin project for reporting this issue. Upstream acknowledges Richard Johnson (Cisco Talos) and Yves Younan (Cisco Talos) as the original reporters.
Frequently Asked Questions
Not sure what something means? Check out our Security Glossary.
Want to get errata notifications? Sign up here.