Denial of service in libxls

1) Heap-based buffer overflow

EUVDB-ID: #VU86559

Risk: Medium

CVSSv3.1: 6.9 [CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H/E:U/RL:U/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2023-38852

CWE-ID: CWE-122 - Heap-based Buffer Overflow

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to preform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

The vulnerability exists due to a boundary error within the unicode_decode_wcstombs() function in xlstool.c when parsing style records. A remote attacker can pass a specially crafted file to the application, trigger a heap-based buffer overflow and perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

Mitigation

Cybersecurity Help is currently unaware of any official solution to address this vulnerability.

Vulnerable software versions

libxls: 1.0.0 - 1.6.2 rc0

External links

http://github.com/libxls/libxls/issues/124
http://github.com/libxls/libxls/pull/129
http://github.com/libxls/libxls/issues/126

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

Yes. This vulnerability can be exploited by a remote non-authenticated attacker via the Internet.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.