CVE-2011-2943

Severity: medium (CVSS 4.3 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: 2011-08-29 · updated 2026-06-16

Description

The irc_msg_who function in msgs.c in the IRC protocol plugin in libpurple 2.8.0 through 2.9.0 in Pidgin before 2.10.0 does not properly validate characters in nicknames, which allows user-assisted remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and application crash) via a crafted nickname that is not properly handled in a WHO response.

Affected products

Pidgin Libpurple: 2.8.0, 2.9.0
Pidgin: through 2.9.0; 2.0.0, 2.0.1, 2.0.2, 2.1.0, 2.1.1, 2.2.0 (+37)

References

http://developer.pidgin.im/viewmtn/revision/diff/5749f9193063800d27bef75c2388f6f9cc2f7f37/with/5c2dba4a7e2e76b76e7f472b88953a4316706d43/libpurple/protocols/irc/msgs.c
http://developer.pidgin.im/viewmtn/revision/info/5c2dba4a7e2e76b76e7f472b88953a4316706d43
http://pidgin.im/news/security/?id=53
http://secunia.com/advisories/45663
http://secunia.com/advisories/45916
http://securitytracker.com/id?1025961
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/08/20/2
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/08/22/2
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/49268
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=722939
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/69340
https://oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A18005

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