CVE-2011-5320

Publication date 18 October 2017

Last updated 25 August 2025

Ubuntu priority

Cvss 3 Severity Score

Description

scanf and related functions in glibc before 2.15 allow local users to cause a denial of service (segmentation fault) via a large string of 0s.

Read the notes from the security team

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
eglibc	15.04 vivid	Not in release
	14.10 utopic	Not in release
	14.04 LTS trusty	Not affected
	12.04 LTS precise	Not affected
	10.04 LTS lucid	Ignored end of life
glibc	15.04 vivid	Not affected
	14.10 utopic	Not affected
	14.04 LTS trusty	Not in release
	12.04 LTS precise	Not in release
	10.04 LTS lucid	Not in release

Notes

seth-arnold

other long strings also crash scanf but only 0 is representable, the standard is slightly lenient here. Second patch may not be strictly necessary, see the discussion at the bug report for opinions.

Patch details

For informational purposes only. We recommend not to cherry-pick updates. How can I get the fixes?

Package	Patch details
eglibc	Upstream: https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=commitdiff;h=3f8cc204fdd0 Upstream: https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=commitdiff;h=20b38e0
glibc	Upstream: https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=commitdiff;h=3f8cc204fdd0 Upstream: https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=commitdiff;h=20b38e0

Severity score breakdown

Parameter	Value
Base score	6.2 · Medium
Attack vector	Local
Attack complexity	Low
Privileges required	None
User interaction	None
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality	None
Integrity impact	None
Availability impact	High
Vector	CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H