U.S. flag   An official website of the United States government
Dot gov

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Https

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (Dot gov) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

CVE-2008-3916 Detail

Description

Heap-based buffer overflow in the strip_escapes function in signal.c in GNU ed before 1.0 allows context-dependent or user-assisted attackers to execute arbitrary code via a long filename. NOTE: since ed itself does not typically run with special privileges, this issue only crosses privilege boundaries when ed is invoked as a third-party component.


Evaluator Description

http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/44643 "GNU ed is vulnerable to a heap-based buffer overflow, caused by improper bounds checking by the strip_escapes() function. By persuading a victim to open a specially-crafted file, a remote attacker could overflow a buffer and execute arbitrary code on the system."

Metrics

NVD enrichment efforts reference publicly available information to associate vector strings. CVSS information contributed by other sources is also displayed.
CVSS 4.0 Severity and Vector Strings:

NIST CVSS score
NIST: NVD
N/A
NVD assessment not yet provided.

References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools

By selecting these links, you will be leaving NIST webspace. We have provided these links to other web sites because they may have information that would be of interest to you. No inferences should be drawn on account of other sites being referenced, or not, from this page. There may be other web sites that are more appropriate for your purpose. NIST does not necessarily endorse the views expressed, or concur with the facts presented on these sites. Further, NIST does not endorse any commercial products that may be mentioned on these sites. Please address comments about this page to [email protected].

URL Source(s) Tag(s)
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ed/2008-08/msg00000.html CVE, MITRE
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2011-01/msg00006.html CVE, MITRE
http://lists.vmware.com/pipermail/security-announce/2010/000082.html CVE, MITRE
http://secunia.com/advisories/32349 CVE, MITRE
http://secunia.com/advisories/32460 CVE, MITRE
http://secunia.com/advisories/33005 CVE, MITRE
http://secunia.com/advisories/38794 CVE, MITRE
http://secunia.com/advisories/43068 CVE, MITRE
http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200809-15.xml CVE, MITRE
http://support.avaya.com/elmodocs2/security/ASA-2008-461.htm CVE, MITRE
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2008:200 CVE, MITRE
http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2008-0946.html CVE, MITRE
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/501298/100/0/threaded CVE, MITRE
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/30815 CVE, MITRE
http://www.securitytracker.com/id?1020734 CVE, MITRE
http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2009-0003.html CVE, MITRE
http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2008/2642 CVE, MITRE
http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2008/3347 CVE, MITRE
http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2010/0528 CVE, MITRE
http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2011/0212 CVE, MITRE
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/44643 CVE, MITRE
https://oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A10678 CVE, MITRE
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-October/msg00847.html CVE, MITRE
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-October/msg00873.html CVE, MITRE

Weakness Enumeration

CWE-ID CWE Name Source
CWE-119 Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer cwe source acceptance level NIST  

Known Affected Software Configurations Switch to CPE 2.2

CPEs loading, please wait.

Denotes Vulnerable Software
Are we missing a CPE here? Please let us know.

Change History

6 change records found show changes

Quick Info

CVE Dictionary Entry:
CVE-2008-3916
NVD Published Date:
09/04/2008
NVD Last Modified:
04/08/2025
Source:
MITRE