PCRE: Buffer overflow

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Updated March 17, 2008

1.  Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

Version Information

Advisory Reference GLSA 200803-24 / libpcre glib
Release Date March 17, 2008
Latest Revision March 17, 2008: 02
Impact high
Exploitable remote
Package Vulnerable versions Unaffected versions Architecture(s)
dev-libs/libpcre < 7.6-r1 >= 7.6-r1 All supported architectures
dev-libs/glib < 2.14.6 >= 2.14.6, < 2.14.0 All supported architectures

Related bugreports: #209067, #209293

Synopsis

A buffer overflow vulnerability has been discovered in PCRE, allowing for the execution of arbitrary code and Denial of Service.

2.  Impact Information

Background

PCRE is a Perl-compatible regular expression library. GLib includes a copy of PCRE.

Description

PCRE contains a buffer overflow vulnerability when processing a character class containing a very large number of characters with codepoints greater than 255.

Impact

A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted regular expression to an application making use of the PCRE library, which could possibly lead to the execution of arbitrary code or a Denial of Service.

3.  Resolution Information

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All PCRE users should upgrade to the latest version:

Code Listing 3.1: Resolution

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=dev-libs/libpcre-7.6-r1"

All GLib users should upgrade to the latest version:

Code Listing 3.2: Resolution

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=dev-libs/glib-2.14.6"

4.  References