CVE-2014-5119

Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 17.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2014-08-29 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-189

Description

Off-by-one error in the __gconv_translit_find function in gconv_trans.c in GNU C Library (aka glibc) allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) or execute arbitrary code via vectors related to the CHARSET environment variable and gconv transliteration modules.

Affected products

Debian Linux: 7.0
GNU C Library (glibc): before 2.20 — fixed in 2.20

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: GNU C Library (glibc) 2.20. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-poisoned-nul-byte-2014-edition.html
http://linux.oracle.com/errata/ELSA-2015-0092.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2014-09/msg00017.html
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2014-1118.html
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Aug/69
http://secunia.com/advisories/60345
http://secunia.com/advisories/60358
http://secunia.com/advisories/60441
http://secunia.com/advisories/61074
http://secunia.com/advisories/61093
http://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityNotice/CVE-2014-5119
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21685604

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