GNU Wget: heap overflow in HTTP protocol handling

Published 9 y ago 2017-10-27 · modified 4 mo ago 2026-06-17 · JSON

CVSS

8.8

v3.0 · CNA

CISA KEV

not known exploited

EPSS

36.6%

percentile 99%

Public exploits

none known

The retr.c:fd_read_body() function is called when processing OK responses. When the response is sent chunked in wget before 1.19.2, the chunk parser uses strtol() to read each chunk's length, but doesn't check that the chunk length is a non-negative number. The code then tries to read the chunk in pieces of 8192 bytes by using the MIN() macro, but ends up passing the negative chunk length to retr.c:fd_read(). As fd_read() takes an int argument, the high 32 bits of the chunk length are discarded, leaving fd_read() with a completely attacker controlled length argument. The attacker can corrupt malloc metadata after the allocated buffer.

Exploit prediction (EPSS)

36.56% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 99% of all scored CVEs.

CVSS scores

Assigned by	Version	Score	Vector
CNA	3.0	8.8	`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`
CNA	3.0	8.8	`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`
NVD	3.0	8.8	`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`
NVD	2.0	9.3	`AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C`

Affected products

GNU Project Wget

Classification

Weakness

CWE-122 Heap-based Buffer Overflow
CWE-119 Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

References

viestintavirasto.fi /en/cybersecurity/vulnerabilities/2017/haavoittuvuus-2017-037.html · x_refsource_MISC, x_transferred
securityfocus.com /bid/101590 · vdb-entry, x_refsource_BID, x_transferred
security.gentoo.org /glsa/201711-06 · vendor-advisory, x_refsource_GENTOO, x_transferred
debian.org /security/2017/dsa-4008 · vendor-advisory, x_refsource_DEBIAN, x_transferred
synology.com /support/security/Synology_SA_17_62_Wget · x_refsource_CONFIRM, x_transferred
git.savannah.gnu.org /cgit/wget.git/commit/?id=ba6b44f6745b14dce414761a8e4b35d31b176bba · x_refsource_CONFIRM, x_transferred
securitytracker.com /id/1039661 · vdb-entry, x_refsource_SECTRACK, x_transferred
access.redhat.com /errata/RHSA-2017:3075 · vendor-advisory, x_refsource_REDHAT, x_transferred

Sources

CVE List: CVE-2017-13090
NVD: CVE-2017-13090

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