What is CVE-2008-5183?

CVE-2008-5183 is a high-severity vulnerability in Apple Cups, classified under NULL Pointer Dereference. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2008-11-21.

How severe is CVE-2008-5183?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.

NULL pointer dereference in Apple Cups

CVE-2008-5183

cupsd in CUPS 1.3.9 and earlier allows local users, and possibly remote attackers, to cause a denial of service (daemon crash) by adding a large number of RSS Subscriptions, which triggers a NULL pointer dereference. NOTE: this issue can be triggered remotely by leveraging CVE-2008-5184.

Published 2008-11-21 · last modified 2026-06-16.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.092 (95.2th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 95th percentile — 95.2% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.092 · newest: 0.092 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Apple Cups
Apple Mac OS X
Apple Mac OS X Server
Debian Linux — versions 5.0, 6.0
openSUSE — versions 11.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-476 — NULL Pointer Dereference

References

www.exploit-db.com/exploits/7150 (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, exploit)
secunia.com/advisories/33937 (Broken Link, third-party-advisory)
oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval:org.mitre.oval:def:10586 (Broken Link, signature, vdb-entry)
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2008/11/20/1 (mailing-list, Mailing List)
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2008/11/19/3 (mailing-list, Mailing List)
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2008/11/19/4 (mailing-list, Mailing List)
support.apple.com/kb/HT3438 (Third Party Advisory)
lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2009/Feb/msg00000.html (vendor-advisory, Mailing List)
www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2176 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
www.securitytracker.com/id (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry, Broken Link)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2008-5183?: CVE-2008-5183 is a high-severity vulnerability in Apple Cups, classified under NULL Pointer Dereference. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2008-11-21.
How severe is CVE-2008-5183?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.