What is CVE-2014-9769?

CVE-2014-9769 is a high-severity vulnerability in Pcre, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 7.3/10. Published 2016-03-28.

How severe is CVE-2014-9769?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.3 out of 10.

Buffer overflow in Pcre

CVE-2014-9769

pcre_jit_compile.c in PCRE 8.35 does not properly use table jumps to optimize nested alternatives, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (stack memory corruption) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted string, as demonstrated by packets encountered by Suricata during use of a regular expression in an Emerging Threats Open ruleset.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2016-03-28 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.3 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.024 (83.0th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 83rd percentile — 83.0% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.024 · newest: 0.024 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Pcre — versions 8.35

Weakness classification (CWE)

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

References

vcs.pcre.org/pcre
www.securityfocus.com/bid/85570 (vdb-entry)
redmine.openinfosecfoundation.org/issues/1693
www.securitytracker.com/id/1035424 (vdb-entry)
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/03/26/1 (mailing-list)
bugs.debian.org/819050

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2014-9769?: CVE-2014-9769 is a high-severity vulnerability in Pcre, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 7.3/10. Published 2016-03-28.
How severe is CVE-2014-9769?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.3 out of 10.