#VU29282 Out-of-bounds read in hunspell - CVE-2019-16707

Vulnerability identifier: #VU29282

Vulnerability risk: Medium

CVSSv4.0: 2.7 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Green]

CVE-ID: CVE-2019-16707

CWE-ID: CWE-125

Exploitation vector: Network

Exploit availability: No

Vulnerable software:
hunspell
Other software / Other software solutions

Vendor: hunspell

Description

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to gain access to potentially sensitive information or perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

The vulnerability exists due to a boundary condition within the SuggestMgr::leftcommonsubstring() function in suggestmgr.cxx. A remote attacker can trigger an out-of-bounds read error and read contents of memory on the system or perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

Mitigation
Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

hunspell: 1.3.4 - 1.7.0

---

External links
https://github.com/butterflyhack/hunspell-crash
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/24NTBHK2QNYKSBMJI34WEU5MHS3H2FAI/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/D2YOYFI36IWKABNGFTWXCH7TTGAFODH6/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/LNTSVWI4SWBQL6XMXNGEH7EAQ45WN63G/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/UD4AJ4M74VT3I6L37E4P5DNYZYBZIOVM/
https://github.com/hunspell/hunspell/releases/tag/v1.7.1

---

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.