What is CVE-2018-20197?

CVE-2018-20197 is a high-severity vulnerability in Audiocoding Freeware Advanced Audio Decoder 2, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2018-12-18.

How severe is CVE-2018-20197?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.

Buffer overflow in Audiocoding Freeware Advanced Audio Decoder 2

CVE-2018-20197

There is a stack-based buffer underflow in the third instance of the calculate_gain function in libfaad/sbr_hfadj.c in Freeware Advanced Audio Decoder 2 (FAAD2) 2.8.8. A crafted input will lead to a denial of service or possibly unspecified other impact because limiting the additional noise energy level is mishandled for the G_max > G case.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2018-12-18 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.013 (69.6th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 70th percentile — 69.6% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.013 · newest: 0.013 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Audiocoding Freeware Advanced Audio Decoder 2 — versions 2.8.8

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-787 — Out-of-bounds Write

References

github.com/knik0/faad2/issues/20 (Exploit, Vendor Advisory)
lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/05/msg00022.html (mailing-list)
www.debian.org/security/2019/dsa-4522 (vendor-advisory)
seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Sep/28 (mailing-list)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/202006-17 (vendor-advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-20197?: CVE-2018-20197 is a high-severity vulnerability in Audiocoding Freeware Advanced Audio Decoder 2, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2018-12-18.
How severe is CVE-2018-20197?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.