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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.3

CVE-2008-2383 json

CRLF injection vulnerability in xterm allows user-assisted attackers to execute arbitrary commands via LF (aka \n) characters surrounding a…

published 2009-01-02 17 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2008-2378

cvss
9.3
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
4.9%
EPSS 4.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 92%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

CRLF injection vulnerability in xterm allows user-assisted attackers to execute arbitrary commands via LF (aka \n) characters surrounding a command name within a Device Control Request Status String (DECRQSS) escape sequence in a text file, a related issue to CVE-2003-0063 and CVE-2003-0071.

Patch / fix

  • xterm Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 238-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2008-2383

  • hanterm-xf RHEL 2.1 1:2.0.5-5.AS21.2
  • xterm RHEL 3 179-11.EL3
  • xterm RHEL 4 192-8.el4_7.2
  • xterm RHEL 5 215-5.el5_2.2

red hat advisories RHSA-2009:0019RHSA-2009:0018

  • xterm openSUSE Tumbleweed 368-2.2

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11527-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2008-2383 updated

xterm: arbitrary command injection

  • Red Hat Desktop version 3 xterm 179-11.EL3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) xterm 215-5.el5_2.2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:0018
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS (Advanced Server) version 2.1 hanterm-xf 2.0.5-5.AS21.2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:0019
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 3 xterm 179-11.EL3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 4 xterm 192-8.el4_7.2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) xterm 215-5.el5_2.2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop version 4 xterm 192-8.el4_7.2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:0018
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 2.1 hanterm-xf 2.0.5-5.AS21.2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:0019
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 3 xterm 179-11.EL3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 4 xterm 192-8.el4_7.2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:0018
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 2.1 hanterm-xf 2.0.5-5.AS21.2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:0019
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 3 xterm 179-11.EL3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 4 xterm 192-8.el4_7.2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:0018
  • Red Hat Linux Advanced Workstation 2.1 hanterm-xf 2.0.5-5.AS21.2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:0019

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

4.93% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 92% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 9.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-94 Improper Control of Generation of Code

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.