Memory leak in expat (Alpine package)

1) Memory leak

EUVDB-ID: #VU33116

Risk: Medium

CVSSv3.1: 4.6 [CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L/E:U/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2012-1148

CWE-ID: CWE-401 - Missing release of memory after effective lifetime

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

The vulnerability exists due to memory leak within the poolGrow function in expat/lib/xmlparse.c in expat before 2.1.0 allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a large number of crafted XML files that cause improperly-handled reallocation failures when expanding entities. A remote attacker can perform a denial of service attack.

Mitigation

Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

expat (Alpine package): 2.0.1-r0 - 2.0.1-r6

External links

http://git.alpinelinux.org/aports/commit/?id=e225209377749c969b4b412b62736f706b32c830
http://git.alpinelinux.org/aports/commit/?id=ebc04c0210d45efc4e5156905cdda9900f4f1ad3
http://git.alpinelinux.org/aports/commit/?id=82105c6f2874a73741115858c9a6d520d13355bd

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

Yes. This vulnerability can be exploited by a remote non-authenticated attacker via the Internet.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.