THREATPORT/VULNERABILITY/CVE-2017-1000254
HIGH SEVERITY

CVE-2017-1000254

Libcurl vulnerability

CVSS
7.5
EPSS
8.5%
EPSS pct
94th
Exploited
No known
libcurl may read outside of a heap allocated buffer when doing FTP. When libcurl connects to an FTP server and successfully logs in (anonymous or not), it asks the server for the current directory with the `PWD` command. The server then responds with a 257 response containing the path, inside double quotes. The returned path name is then kept by libcurl for subsequent uses. Due to a flaw in the string parser for this directory name, a directory name passed like this but without a closing double quote would lead to libcurl not adding a trailing NUL byte to the buffer holding the name. When libcurl would then later access the string, it could read beyond the allocated heap buffer and crash or wrongly access data beyond the buffer, thinking it was part of the path. A malicious server could abuse this fact and effectively prevent libcurl-based clients to work with it - the PWD command is always issued on new FTP connections and the mistake has a high chance of causing a segfault. The simple fact that this has issue remained undiscovered for this long could suggest that malformed PWD responses are rare in benign servers. We are not aware of any exploit of this flaw. This bug was introduced in commit [415d2e7cb7](https://github.com/curl/curl/commit/415d2e7cb7), March 2005. In libcurl version 7.56.0, the parser always zero terminates the string but also rejects it if not terminated properly with a final double quote.
Affected vendor
Haxx
Affected product
Libcurl
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Weakness type (CWE)
  • CWE-119 — Improper Restriction of Operations within Memory Bounds
Published
2017-10-06

Risk analysis

Based on its CVSS vector, this vulnerability is exploitable over the network, low attack complexity, requiring no privileges, no user interaction. Successful exploitation leads to high impact to availability.

Its EPSS score of 8.5% reflects a lower probability of exploitation activity in the wild over the next 30 days, placing it above 94% of all scored CVEs.

Check your external exposure to CVE-2017-1000254

  • Confirm whether Haxx Libcurl is running on any internet-facing host or subdomain.
  • Match discovered service fingerprints against the version affected by CVE-2017-1000254.
  • Prioritise remediation if the asset is public, business-critical, or near authentication/payment flows.

How ThreatPort helps with CVE-2017-1000254

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