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Buffer overflow and format vulnerabilities in ncurses

Critical severity GitHub Reviewed Published Aug 25, 2021 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Jun 13, 2023

Package

cargo ncurses (Rust)

Affected versions

<= 5.101.0

Patched versions

None

Description

ncurses exposes functions from the ncurses library which:

  • Pass buffers without length to C functions that may write an arbitrary amount of data, leading to a buffer overflow. (instr, mvwinstr, etc)
  • Passes rust &str to strings expecting C format arguments, allowing hostile input to execute a format string attack, which trivially allows writing arbitrary data to stack memory (functions in the printw family).

References

Reviewed Aug 18, 2021
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Aug 25, 2021
Last updated Jun 13, 2023

Severity

Critical

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS score

0.250%
(66th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2019-15548

GHSA ID

GHSA-g7r5-x7cr-vm3v

Source code

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