CVE-2015-8983

Publication date 31 December 2015

Last updated 25 August 2025

Ubuntu priority

Cvss 3 Severity Score

Description

Integer overflow in the _IO_wstr_overflow function in libio/wstrops.c in the GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) before 2.22 allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code via vectors related to computing a size in bytes, which triggers a heap-based buffer overflow.

From the Ubuntu Security Team

It was discovered that an integer overflow existed in the _IO_wstr_overflow() function of the GNU C Library. An attacker could use this to cause a denial of service or possibly execute arbitrary code.

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
eglibc	17.04 zesty	Not in release
	16.10 yakkety	Not in release
	16.04 LTS xenial	Not in release
	14.04 LTS trusty	Fixed 2.19-0ubuntu6.10
	12.04 LTS precise	Fixed 2.15-0ubuntu10.16
glibc	17.04 zesty	Not affected
	16.10 yakkety	Not affected
	16.04 LTS xenial	Not affected
	14.04 LTS trusty	Not in release
	12.04 LTS precise	Not in release

Patch details

For informational purposes only. We recommend not to cherry-pick updates. How can I get the fixes?

Package	Patch details
glibc	Upstream: https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=glibc.git;h=bdf1ff052a8e23d637f2c838fa5642d78fcedc33

Severity score breakdown

Parameter	Value
Base score	8.1 · High
Attack vector	Network
Attack complexity	High
Privileges required	None
User interaction	None
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality	High
Integrity impact	High
Availability impact	High
Vector	CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References

Related Ubuntu Security Notices (USN)

USN-3239-1
GNU C Library vulnerabilities
21 March 2017