SB2015120210 - Buffer overflow in PCRE
Published: December 2, 2015 Updated: February 16, 2026
Security Bulletin ID
SB2015120210
CSH Severity
Medium
Patch available
YES
Number of vulnerabilities
1
Exploitation vector
Remote access
Highest impact
Data manipulation
Breakdown by Severity
- Low
- Medium
- High
- Critical
Description
This security bulletin contains information about 1 vulnerability.
1) Buffer overflow (CVE-ID: CVE-2015-8384)
CWE-ID: CWE-119 - Memory corruption
CVSSv4: 5.1 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:L/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]
The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to perform a denial of service attack.
The vulnerability exists due to PCRE mishandles the /(?J)(?'d'(?'d'g{d}))/ pattern and related patterns with certain recursive back references. A remote attacker can send a specially crafted regular expression to cause a denial of service (buffer overflow).
Remediation
Install update from vendor's website.
References
- http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-2750.html
- http://vcs.pcre.org/pcre/code/trunk/ChangeLog?view=markup
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2015/11/29/1
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016:1132
- https://bto.bluecoat.com/security-advisory/sa128
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201607-02