What is CVE-2015-8779?

CVE-2015-8779 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 2016-04-19.

How severe is CVE-2015-8779?

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

Is CVE-2015-8779 known to be exploited?

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

Buffer overflow in Gnu Glibc

CVE-2015-8779

Stack-based buffer overflow in the catopen function in the GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) before 2.23 allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code via a long cat…

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

EPSS: 0.036 (88.0th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

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.

Affected products

Gnu Glibc
Canonical Ubuntu_linux — versions 12.04, 14.04, 15.10
Debian Debian_linux — versions 8.0
Fedoraproject Fedora — versions 23
Opensuse — versions 13.2
Suse Linux_enterprise_debuginfo — versions 11
Suse Linux_enterprise_desktop — versions 11, 12
Suse Linux_enterprise_server — versions 11, 12
Suse Linux_enterprise_software_development_kit — versions 11, 12
Suse Suse_linux_enterprise_server — versions 12

Weakness classification (CWE)

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

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

SUSE-SU-2016:0471 (vendor-advisory, x_refsource_SUSE)
FEDORA-2016-68abc0be35 (x_refsource_FEDORA, vendor-advisory)
RHSA-2017:1916 (x_refsource_REDHAT, vendor-advisory)
DSA-3481 (vendor-advisory, x_refsource_DEBIAN)
openSUSE-SU-2016:0510 (vendor-advisory, x_refsource_SUSE)
SUSE-SU-2016:0470 (vendor-advisory, x_refsource_SUSE)
RHSA-2017:0680 (x_refsource_REDHAT, vendor-advisory)
USN-2985-2 (x_refsource_UBUNTU, vendor-advisory)
[oss-security] 20160119 Re: CVE assignment request for security bugs fixed in glibc 2.23 (mailing-list, x_refsource_MLIST)
GLSA-201702-11 (vendor-advisory, x_refsource_GENTOO)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2015-8779?: CVE-2015-8779 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 2016-04-19.
How severe is CVE-2015-8779?: Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.
Is CVE-2015-8779 known to be exploited?: 2 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.