THREATPORT/VULNERABILITY/CVE-2015-8381
HIGH SEVERITY

CVE-2015-8381

Perl Compatible Regular Expression Library vulnerability

CVSS
7.5
EPSS
5.3%
EPSS pct
92th
Exploited
No known
The compile_regex function in pcre_compile.c in PCRE before 8.38 and pcre2_compile.c in PCRE2 before 10.2x mishandles the /(?J:(?|(:(?|(?'R')(\k'R')|((?'R')))H'Rk'Rf)|s(?'R'))))/ and /(?J:(?|(:(?|(?'R')(\z(?|(?'R')(\k'R')|((?'R')))k'R')|((?'R')))H'Ak'Rf)|s(?'R')))/ patterns, and related patterns with certain group references, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (heap-based buffer overflow) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted regular expression, as demonstrated by a JavaScript RegExp object encountered by Konqueror.
Affected vendor
Pcre
Affected product
Perl Compatible Regular Expression Library
CVSS vector
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Weakness type (CWE)
  • CWE-119 — Improper Restriction of Operations within Memory Bounds
Published
2015-12-02

Risk analysis

Based on its CVSS vector, this vulnerability is exploitable over the network, low attack complexity, requiring no authentication. Successful exploitation leads to partial impact to confidentiality, partial impact to integrity, partial impact to availability.

Its EPSS score of 5.3% reflects a lower probability of exploitation activity in the wild over the next 30 days, placing it above 92% of all scored CVEs.

Check your external exposure to CVE-2015-8381

  • Confirm whether Pcre Perl Compatible Regular Expression Library is running on any internet-facing host or subdomain.
  • Match discovered service fingerprints against the version affected by CVE-2015-8381.
  • Prioritise remediation if the asset is public, business-critical, or near authentication/payment flows.

How ThreatPort helps with CVE-2015-8381

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