Denial of service in libxls

1) NULL pointer dereference

EUVDB-ID: #VU50921

Risk: Medium

CVSSv3.1: 5.7 [CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2020-27819

CWE-ID: CWE-476 - NULL Pointer Dereference

Exploit availability: No

Description

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

The vulnerability exists due to a NULL pointer dereference error within the libxls/xls2csv.c file in libxls when parsing XLS cells. A remote attacker can trigger denial of service conditions via crafted XLS file.

Mitigation

Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

libxls: 0.2.0 - 1.6.2 rc0

External links

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1903296
http://github.com/libxls/libxls/issues/84

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.