CVE-2016-3191: pcre

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2016-3191 is a critical (CVSS 9.8) vulnerability in pcre. EPSS estimates a 8.43% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 94.9% of scored vulnerabilities. 1 public exploit is recorded.

Timeline

1. 17-03-2016
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 05-08-2024
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

The compile_branch function in pcre_compile.c in PCRE 8.x before 8.39 and pcre2_compile.c in PCRE2 before 10.22 mishandles patterns containing an (*ACCEPT) substring in conjunction with nested parentheses, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (stack-based buffer overflow) via a crafted regular expression, as demonstrated by a JavaScript RegExp object encountered by Konqueror, aka ZDI-CAN-3542.

• CWE-119Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory BufferThe product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it reads from or writes to a memory location outside the buffer's intended boundary. This may result in read or write operations on unexpected memory locations that could be linked to other variables, data structures, or internal program data.