CVE-2008-3916

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.3 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 3.6% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2008-09-04 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-119

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.

Affected products

GNU Ed: 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7 (+2)

References

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ed/2008-08/msg00000.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2011-01/msg00006.html
http://lists.vmware.com/pipermail/security-announce/2010/000082.html
http://secunia.com/advisories/32349
http://secunia.com/advisories/32460
http://secunia.com/advisories/33005
http://secunia.com/advisories/38794
http://secunia.com/advisories/43068
http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200809-15.xml
http://support.avaya.com/elmodocs2/security/ASA-2008-461.htm
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2008:200
http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2008-0946.html

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