CVE-2015-8383

PCRE before 8.38 mishandles certain repeated conditional groups, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (buffer overflow) or possibly have…

published December 2, 2015

CVSS
—
EPSS
6%
Percentile
93.4
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

⚠️ A crafty crafted regular expression can lead to a denial of service! This vulnerability allows attackers to exploit repeated conditional groups in PCRE, causing chaos without needing to break a sweat. 🔍 Think of it like a waiter who can't handle complicated orders — they keep mixing up the requests, and soon the whole kitchen is in disarray! The repeated conditions in the regex are like those confusing orders piling up. 🍽️ This failure could result in a buffer overflow, leading to a service crash! While the severity is marked as unknown, the potential for service disruption is clear — nobody likes a system that throws in the towel unexpectedly!

Put simply

Think of it like a waiter who can't handle complicated orders — they keep mixing up the requests, and soon the whole kitchen is in disarray! The repeated conditions in the regex are like those confusing orders piling up. 🍽️ This vulnerability in PCRE versions before 8.38 mishandles certain complex regex patterns, allowing remote attackers to trigger a buffer overflow through maliciously crafted regular expressions, as illustrated by a JavaScript RegExp object in Konqueror.

What to do

This failure could result in a buffer overflow, leading to a service crash! While the severity is marked as unknown, the potential for service disruption is clear — nobody likes a system that throws in the towel unexpectedly! To protect your systems, upgrade to PCRE version 8.38 or later immediately! Regularly review your regex patterns for complexities that could lead to vulnerabilities. Regular updates and audits are your best friends in security! 🛡️ You’ve got this! Following these steps will help you lock down your defenses and keep your services running smoothly! 🚀

The record
Technical detail
CVSS
Not scored
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.06077 · 93.4th percentile
Published
2015-12-02T00:00Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 02 DEC 00:00Z
    PCRE before 8.38 mishandles certain repeated conditional groups, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (buffer overflow) or possibly have…
    cvelistv5