What is CVE-2005-3590?

CVE-2005-3590 is a critical-severity vulnerability in GNU Glibc, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2019-04-10.

How severe is CVE-2005-3590?

Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.

Buffer overflow in GNU Glibc

CVE-2005-3590

The getgrouplist function in the GNU C library (glibc) before version 2.3.5, when invoked with a zero argument, writes to the passed pointer even if the specified array size is zero, leading to a buffer overflow and potentially allowing attackers to corrupt memory.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2019-04-10 · last modified 2026-06-16.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.021 (80.8th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 81st percentile — 80.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.021 · newest: 0.021 · change: 0.000

Affected products

GNU Glibc

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-119 — Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

References

sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi (Patch, Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
www.securityfocus.com/bid/107871 (vdb-entry)
support.f5.com/csp/article/K12740406

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2005-3590?: CVE-2005-3590 is a critical-severity vulnerability in GNU Glibc, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2019-04-10.
How severe is CVE-2005-3590?: Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.