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Fencer Vulns
medium 4.3

CVE-2008-2955 json

Pidgin 2.4.1 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a long filename that contains certain characters, as demonstr…

published 2008-07-01 18 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2008-2945

cvss
4.3
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
7.3%
EPSS 7.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 94%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

Pidgin 2.4.1 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a long filename that contains certain characters, as demonstrated using an MSN message that triggers the crash in the msn_slplink_process_msg function.

Patch / fix

  • pidgin Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.4.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2008-2955

  • pidgin RHEL 4 2.5.2-6.el4
  • pidgin RHEL 5 PRODUCTIVITY, RHEL 5 2.5.2-6.el5
  • finch RHEL 4 2.5.2-6.el4
  • finch RHEL 5 PRODUCTIVITY, RHEL 5 2.5.2-6.el5
  • libpurple RHEL 4 2.5.2-6.el4
  • libpurple RHEL 5 PRODUCTIVITY, RHEL 5 2.5.2-6.el5
  • pidgin-perl RHEL 4 2.5.2-6.el4
  • pidgin-perl RHEL 5 PRODUCTIVITY, RHEL 5 2.5.2-6.el5

red hat advisories RHSA-2008:1023

  • pidgin openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.14.7-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11172-1

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-2008-2955 updated

pidgin: remote DoS via MSN message with crafted file name

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 4 finch 2.5.2-6.el4, pidgin 2.5.2-6.el4, libpurple 2.5.2-6.el4, pidgin-perl 2.5.2-6.el4, libpurple-tcl 2.5.2-6.el4, libpurple-perl 2.5.2-6.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) finch 2.5.2-6.el5, pidgin 2.5.2-6.el5, libpurple 2.5.2-6.el5, pidgin-perl 2.5.2-6.el5, libpurple-tcl 2.5.2-6.el5, libpurple-perl 2.5.2-6.el5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop version 4 finch 2.5.2-6.el4, pidgin 2.5.2-6.el4, libpurple 2.5.2-6.el4, pidgin-perl 2.5.2-6.el4, libpurple-tcl 2.5.2-6.el4, libpurple-perl 2.5.2-6.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Workstation (v. 5 client) finch 2.5.2-6.el5, pidgin 2.5.2-6.el5, libpurple 2.5.2-6.el5, pidgin-perl 2.5.2-6.el5, libpurple-tcl 2.5.2-6.el5, libpurple-perl 2.5.2-6.el5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 4 finch 2.5.2-6.el4, pidgin 2.5.2-6.el4, libpurple 2.5.2-6.el4, pidgin-perl 2.5.2-6.el4, libpurple-tcl 2.5.2-6.el4, libpurple-perl 2.5.2-6.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Optional Productivity Applications (v. 5 server) finch 2.5.2-6.el5, pidgin 2.5.2-6.el5, libpurple 2.5.2-6.el5, pidgin-perl 2.5.2-6.el5, libpurple-tcl 2.5.2-6.el5, libpurple-perl 2.5.2-6.el5
    +1 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 4 finch 2.5.2-6.el4, pidgin 2.5.2-6.el4, libpurple 2.5.2-6.el4, pidgin-perl 2.5.2-6.el4, libpurple-tcl 2.5.2-6.el4, libpurple-perl 2.5.2-6.el4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2008:1023

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

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. First public exploit (EDB-32749)

Exploit prediction

7.26% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 94% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-32749 Pidgin 2.4.2 - 'msn_slplink_process_msg()' Denial of Service dos, 2009-01-26

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

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.