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Fencer Vulns
high 7.5

CVE-2017-13728 json

There is an infinite loop in the next_char function in comp_scan.c in ncurses 6.0, related to libtic.

published 2017-08-29 9 y ago modified 2026-07-23 3 mo ago also EUVD-2017-5245

cvss
7.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
4.2%
EPSS 4.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 91%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

There is an infinite loop in the next_char function in comp_scan.c in ncurses 6.0, related to libtic. A crafted input will lead to a remote denial of service attack.

Patch / fix

  • ncurses Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.0+20170827-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-13728

  • ncurses Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 5.9+20140118-1ubuntu1+esm1
  • ncurses Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 6.0+20160213-1ubuntu1+esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-13728

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • ncurses SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for Raspberry Pi 12 SP2 +6 more 5.9-58.1
  • ncurses SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for Raspberry Pi 12 SP2 +6 more 5.9-55.1
  • ncurses SLES for SAP 11 SP4, SLES 11 SP4, SLE Software Development Kit 11 SP4 5.6-93.12.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2018:0284-1SUSE-SU-2018:0120-1SUSE-SU-2017:3183-1

  • ncurses Alpine 3.5, Alpine 3.4, Alpine 3.3 6.0_p20170701-r0
  • ncurses Alpine 3.6 6.0_p20170930-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2017-13728

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

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-2017-13728 updated cvss 3.3

ncurses: Infinite loop in the next_char function

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 ncurses Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 ncurses, ncurses-base, ncurses-libs, ncurses-term Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 ncurses, ncurses-base, ncurses-libs, ncurses-term
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”

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

4.20% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 91% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • bugzilla.redhat.com https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1484274 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 7.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-835 Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition

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.