CVE-2024-56406: perl Heap-based Buffer Overflow
Vulnerability summary
CVE-2024-56406 is a high (CVSS 8.4) Heap-based Buffer Overflow vulnerability in perl. EPSS estimates a 0.54% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 44.3% of scored vulnerabilities.
Advisory lineage
Upstream 0 · Downstream 2 · Related 1Timeline
- 13-04-2025PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
- 16-10-2025Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.
Description
A heap buffer overflow vulnerability was discovered in Perl. Release branches 5.34, 5.36, 5.38 and 5.40 are affected, including development versions from 5.33.1 through 5.41.10. When there are non-ASCII bytes in the left-hand-side of the `tr` operator, `S_do_trans_invmap` can overflow the destination pointer `d`. $ perl -e '$_ = "\x{FF}" x 1000000; tr/\xFF/\x{100}/;' Segmentation fault (core dumped) It is believed that this vulnerability can enable Denial of Service and possibly Code Execution attacks on platforms that lack sufficient defenses.
CVSS metrics
6 scores · 6 sources · 1 version- OSV · AlpineEcosystem advisory · calculated8.4HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- OSV · Red hatEcosystem advisory · calculated7.3HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:HDiffers
- OSV · UbuntuEcosystem advisory · calculated8.4HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- OSV · DebianEcosystem advisory · calculated8.4HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- NVDNIST8.4HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS trend
Probability
0.54%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days
Percentile
44%
Versus all other CVEs
30-day change
0.00 pp
From 0.54% on 21-09-2026
Known exploited
Compare KEV catalogsNot in any of the 3 tracked catalogs.
Public exploits
0 foundNo public exploits indexed.
Weaknesses
CWE · root cause- CWE-122Heap-based Buffer OverflowA heap overflow condition is a buffer overflow, where the buffer that can be overwritten is allocated in the heap portion of memory, generally meaning that the buffer was allocated using a routine such as malloc().
- CWE-787Out-of-bounds WriteThe product writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.
Affected systems
Redhat120 products
- perl< 4:5.40.2-512.1.el10_0
- perl-Attribute-Handlers< 0:1.03-512.1.el10_0
- perl-AutoLoader< 0:5.74-512.1.el10_0
- perl-AutoSplit< 0:5.74-512.1.el10_0
- perl-autouse< 0:1.11-512.1.el10_0
Alpine1 product
- perl≥ 5.33.1, < 5.36.2-r1 | ≥ 5.33.1, < 5.38.3-r1 | ≥ 5.33.1, < 5.40.1-r1
Debian1 product
- perl< 5.40.1-3 | < 5.36.0-7+deb12u2
Opensuse1 product
- perl&distro=openSUSE Tumbleweed< 5.40.2-1.1
Perl1 product
- perl≥ 5.39.0, < 5.40.2-RC1 | ≥ 5.33.1, < 5.38.4-RC1 | ≥ 5.33.1, < 5.38.4 | ≥ 5.39.0, < 5.40.2 | ≥ 5.41.0, ≤ 5.41.10
Suse1 product
- perl&distro=SUSE Linux Micro 6.0< 5.38.2-2.1
Ubuntu1 product
- perl< 5.34.0-3ubuntu1.4 | < 5.38.2-3.2ubuntu0.1 | < 5.40.1-2ubuntu0.1
7 vendors · 126 products
References
22 links- www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/04/13/3Mailing List
- www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/04/13/4Mailing List
- www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/04/13/5Mailing List
Show all 22 references
- lists.opensuse.org/archives/…Advisory