PCRE up to 8.37 Reference Regex Pattern memory corruption

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as critical has been reported in PCRE up to 8.37. This issue affects some unknown processing of the component Reference Handler. The manipulation as part of Regex Pattern leads to memory corruption. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2015-8395. The attack can be initiated remotely. There is not any exploit available. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as very critical, has been found in PCRE up to 8.37 (Programming Tool Software). This issue affects an unknown code of the component Reference Handler. The manipulation as part of a Regex Pattern leads to a memory corruption vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-119. The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it can read from or write to a memory location that is outside of the intended boundary of the buffer. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

PCRE before 8.38 mishandles certain references, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted regular expression, as demonstrated by a JavaScript RegExp object encountered by Konqueror, a related issue to CVE-2015-8384 and CVE-2015-8392.

The weakness was released 12/02/2015 (Website). It is possible to read the advisory at openwall.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2015-8395 since 12/01/2015. The attack may be initiated remotely. No form of authentication is needed for a successful exploitation. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 06/28/2022).

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 89641 (Fedora 22 : mingw-pcre-8.38-1.fc22 (2016-f59a8ff5d0)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment. It is assigned to the family Fedora Local Security Checks and running in the context l. The commercial vulnerability scanner Qualys is able to test this issue with plugin 124724 (Fedora Security Update for mingw-pcre (FEDORA-2016-f59a8ff5d0)).

Upgrading to version 8.38 eliminates this vulnerability. A possible mitigation has been published 3 months after the disclosure of the vulnerability.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at Tenable (89641). Entries connected to this vulnerability are available at VDB-79371, VDB-79376, VDB-79377 and VDB-79379. Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Programming Tool Software

Name

• PCRE

Version

• 8.0
• 8.1
• 8.2
• 8.3
• 8.4
• 8.5
• 8.6
• 8.7
• 8.8
• 8.9
• 8.10
• 8.11
• 8.12
• 8.13
• 8.14
• 8.15
• 8.16
• 8.17
• 8.18
• 8.19
• 8.20
• 8.21
• 8.22
• 8.23
• 8.24
• 8.25
• 8.26
• 8.27
• 8.28
• 8.29
• 8.30
• 8.31
• 8.32
• 8.33
• 8.34
• 8.35
• 8.36
• 8.37

License

• open-source

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

• 🔍
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CVSSv3info

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Entryinfo

Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

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