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CVE-2022-43680 affects libexpat through version 2.4.9, where a use-after-free vulnerability exists due to overeager destruction of a shared DTD in XML_ExternalEntityParserCreate function during out-of-memory situations. The vulnerability was discovered in October 2022 and affects systems using the Expat XML parsing library (NVD, Debian Security).
The vulnerability occurs when the allocation in parserInit fails during XMLExternalEntityParserCreate execution. Specifically, when parser->mprotocolEncodingName allocation fails, XMLParserFree is called on the parser whose mdtd pointer is shared with the document's root parser. Since the misParamEntity flag is set too late in XMLExternalEntityParserCreate, this results in incorrect destruction of the shared DTD (Github Issue). The vulnerability has been assigned a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (HIGH) with vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H (NVD).
Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could lead to denial of service (DoS) conditions. The use-after-free condition could potentially result in program crashes or, in some cases, arbitrary code execution (NetApp Advisory, Gentoo Security).
The vulnerability has been fixed in libexpat version 2.5.0. Users and administrators are advised to upgrade to this or later versions. Various distributions have released patched versions: Debian has fixed it in version 2.2.10-2+deb11u5 for Bullseye, Fedora has updated to version 2.5.0, and other vendors have provided their respective security updates (Debian Security, Fedora Update).
Source: This report was generated using AI
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