Quantum Secular Labs / Blog / Advisories

CVE-2016-8620: Haxx Curl: Buffer overflow

CVE-2016-8620 is rated critical with a CVSS v3.0 base score of 9.8 and affects Haxx Curl. Per its scoring, it can be exploited over the network, without authentication, without any user interaction. The scored impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is the highest available.

Vulnerability description

The 'globbing' feature in curl before version 7.51.0 has a flaw that leads to integer overflow and out-of-bounds read via user controlled input.

Severity breakdown

CVSS v3.0 9.8: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack vector: Network. Exploitable remotely over the network, with no need for local or physical access.
Attack complexity: Low. No special conditions; the attack can be repeated reliably.
Privileges required: None. No account or prior access is needed.
User interaction: None. No action from any user is needed.
Scope: Unchanged. Impact stays within the vulnerable component.
Confidentiality impact: High. Total loss of confidentiality; sensitive data can be fully disclosed.
Integrity impact: High. Total loss of integrity; data or system state can be fully modified.
Availability impact: High. Total loss of availability; the component can be shut down.

Underlying weakness

CWE-120: Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input

The product copies an input buffer to an output buffer without verifying that the size of the input buffer is less than the size of the output buffer.

CWE-125: Out-of-bounds Read

The product reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.

CWE-190: Integer Overflow or Wraparound

The product performs a calculation that can produce an integer overflow or wraparound when the logic assumes that the resulting value will always be larger than the original value. This occurs when an integer value is incremented to a value that is too large to store in the associated representation. When this occurs, the value may become a very small or negative number.

Affected products

Haxx Curl: before 7.51.0