What is CVE-2018-20452?

CVE-2018-20452 is a high-severity vulnerability in Libxls Project, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2018-12-25.

How severe is CVE-2018-20452?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.

Buffer overflow in Libxls Project

CVE-2018-20452

The read_MSAT_body function in ole.c in libxls 1.4.0 has an invalid free that allows attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted file, because of inconsistent memory management (new versus free) in ole2_read_header in ole.c.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2018-12-25 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.015 (73.3th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 73rd percentile — 73.3% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.015 · newest: 0.015 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Libxls Project — versions 1.4.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

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

References

github.com/evanmiller/libxls/issues/35 (Exploit, Third Party Advisory)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/202003-64 (vendor-advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-20452?: CVE-2018-20452 is a high-severity vulnerability in Libxls Project, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2018-12-25.
How severe is CVE-2018-20452?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.