What is CVE-2009-5153?

CVE-2009-5153 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Microfocus Netware, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2018-11-21.

How severe is CVE-2009-5153?

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

Buffer overflow in Microfocus Netware

CVE-2009-5153

In Novell NetWare before 6.5 SP8, a stack buffer overflow in processing of CALLIT RPC calls in the NFS Portmapper daemon in PKERNEL.NLM allowed remote unauthenticated attackers to execute code, because a length field was incorrectly trusted.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2018-11-21 · 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: 0.061 (93.2th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 93rd percentile — 93.2% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.061 · newest: 0.061 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Microfocus Netware — versions 6.5

Weakness classification (CWE)

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

References

bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi (Permissions Required, Third Party Advisory)
www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-09-067/ (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory)
download.novell.com/Download (Vendor Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2009-5153?: CVE-2009-5153 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Microfocus Netware, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2018-11-21.
How severe is CVE-2009-5153?: Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.