What is CVE-2014-5461?

CVE-2014-5461 is a vulnerability in Lua, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. Published 2014-09-04.

Is CVE-2014-5461 known to be exploited?

9 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Buffer overflow in Lua

CVE-2014-5461

Buffer overflow in the vararg functions in ldo.c in Lua 5.1 through 5.2.x before 5.2.3 allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a small number of arguments to a function with a large number of fixed arguments.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2014-09-04 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v2 metric

CVSS v2 base score 5.0 (Medium). Vector: AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P. This CVE predates CVSS v3 and has no v3 score from NVD.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.117 (95.9th percentile), scored 2026-09-28.

Moderate probability of exploitation in the next 30 days — watch for active exploitation reports. 96th percentile — 95.9% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.117 · newest: 0.117 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Lua — versions 5.1, 5.1.1, 5.1.2
Mageia — versions 3.0, 4.0
Canonical Ubuntu Linux — versions 12.04, 14.04
Debian Linux — versions 7.0
openSUSE — versions 12.3, 13.1

Weakness classification (CWE)

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

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2014/08/21/4 (mailing-list, Exploit, Patch, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-2338-1 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/201701-53 (vendor-advisory)
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2014/08/27/2 (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
www.securityfocus.com/bid/69342 (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry)
secunia.com/advisories/59890 (third-party-advisory)
www.mandriva.com/security/advisories (vendor-advisory, Broken Link)
www.debian.org/security/2014/dsa-3016 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2014/08/21/1 (mailing-list, Exploit, Patch, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
secunia.com/advisories/60869 (third-party-advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2014-5461?: CVE-2014-5461 is a vulnerability in Lua, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. Published 2014-09-04.
Is CVE-2014-5461 known to be exploited?: 9 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.