What is CVE-2019-18397?

CVE-2019-18397 is a high-severity vulnerability in GNU Fribidi, classified under Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input (Classic Buffer Overflow). CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2019-11-13.

How severe is CVE-2019-18397?

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

Buffer overflow in GNU Fribidi

CVE-2019-18397

A buffer overflow in the fribidi_get_par_embedding_levels_ex() function in lib/fribidi-bidi.c of GNU FriBidi through 1.0.7 allows an attacker to cause a denial of service or possibly execute arbitrary code by delivering crafted text content to a user, when this content is then rendered by an application that uses FriBidi for text layout calculations. Examples include any GNOME or GTK+ based application that uses Pango for text layout, as this internally uses FriBidi for bidirectional text layout. For example, the attacker can construct a crafted text file to be opened in GEdit, or a crafted IRC message to be viewed in HexChat.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2019-11-13 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.022 (81.6th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 82nd percentile — 81.6% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.022 · newest: 0.022 · change: 0.000

Affected products

GNU Fribidi
Debian Linux — versions 10.0, 8.0, 9.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-120 — Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input (Classic Buffer Overflow)

References

github.com/fribidi/fribidi/commit/034c6e9a1d296286305f4cfd1e0072b879f52568 (Patch)
marc.info/ (Third Party Advisory)
bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi (Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2019-18397 (Third Party Advisory)
lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/… (vendor-advisory)
access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:4326 (vendor-advisory)
lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/… (vendor-advisory)
access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:4361 (vendor-advisory)
access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2020:0291 (vendor-advisory)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/202003-41 (vendor-advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2019-18397?: CVE-2019-18397 is a high-severity vulnerability in GNU Fribidi, classified under Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input (Classic Buffer Overflow). CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2019-11-13.
How severe is CVE-2019-18397?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.