Denial of Service Vulnerability in PCRE Compromises Applications
CVE-2015-8386

9.8CRITICAL

Key Information:

Vendor

Pcre

Status
Perl Compatible Regular Expression Library
Vendor
CVE Published:
2 December 2015

What is CVE-2015-8386?

The vulnerability occurs in PCRE prior to version 8.38, where improper handling of lookbehind assertions and mutually recursive subpatterns can lead to a denial of service. Attackers can exploit this by sending specially crafted regular expressions, resulting in buffer overflow situations that may compromise system stability and functionality. This threat was notably demonstrated using a JavaScript RegExp object in the Konqueror web browser.

References

http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2015/11/29/1
mailing-list
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016:1132
vendor-advisory
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/82990
vdb-entry

EPSS Score

7% chance of being exploited in the next 30 days.

CVSS V3.1

Score:
9.8
Severity:
CRITICAL
Confidentiality:
High
Integrity:
High
Availability:
High
Attack Vector:
Network
Attack Complexity:
Low
Privileges Required:
None
User Interaction:
None
Scope:
Unchanged

Timeline

  • Vulnerability published

  • Vulnerability Reserved

.