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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2017-16231 json

In PCRE 8.41, after compiling, a pcretest load test PoC produces a crash overflow in the function match() in pcre_exec.c because of a self-…

published 2019-03-17 7 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-7428

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 45%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In PCRE 8.41, after compiling, a pcretest load test PoC produces a crash overflow in the function match() in pcre_exec.c because of a self-recursive call. NOTE: third parties dispute the relevance of this report, noting that there are options that can be used to limit the amount of stack that is used

Patch / fix

  • pcre Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +19 more 7.8-r0
  • tiff Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +19 more 4.0.9-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2017-16231

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-2017-16231 updated cvss 5.5

pcre: self-recursive call in match() in pcre_exec.c leads to denial of service

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 pcre Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 pcre, glib2, firefox, thunderbird, chromium-browser Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 pcre, glib2, glib2-fam, pcre-tools, glib2-tests, virtuoso-opensource, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 pcre, pcre-cpp, pcre-utf16, pcre-utf32, mingw32-pcre, mingw64-pcre Red Hat JBoss Core Services pcre Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 httpd
    +4 more products
    Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6 httpd, mod_ssl, mod_ldap, httpd-tools, httpd-manual Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Web Server 1 pcre, httpd Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Web Server 2 jbcs-httpd24, jbcs-httpd24-runtime Red Hat Software Collections rh-php70-php, rh-php70-php-gd, rh-php70-php-cli, rh-php70-php-dba, rh-php70-php-dbg, rh-php70-php-fpm, +41 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.54% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 45% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • openwall.com http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/11/01/3 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • openwall.com http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/11/01/8 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.0 5.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 2.1 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Affected products

  • pcre pcre

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-119 Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

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.