Description
In libarchive before 3.6.2, the software does not check for an error after calling calloc function that can return with a NULL pointer if the function fails, which leads to a resultant NULL pointer dereference. NOTE: the discoverer cites this CWE-476 remark but third parties dispute the code-execution impact: "In rare circumstances, when NULL is equivalent to the 0x0 memory address and privileged code can access it, then writing or reading memory is possible, which may lead to code execution."
References (7)
Core 7
Core References
Issue Tracking, Patch, Third Party Advisory
https://bugs.gentoo.org/882521
Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/blob/v3.0.0a/libarchive/archive_write.c#L215
Issue Tracking, Patch, Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/issues/1754
Mailing List, Third Party Advisory vendor-advisory
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/V67OO2UUQAUJS3IK4JZPF6F3LUCBU6IS/
Third Party Advisory mailing-list
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/01/msg00034.html
Third Party Advisory vendor-advisory
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202309-14
Scores
CVSS v3
9.8
EPSS
0.0048
EPSS Percentile
65.2%
Attack Vector
NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Details
CWE
CWE-476
Status
published
Products (5)
debian/debian_linux
10.0
fedoraproject/fedora
37
libarchive/libarchive
3.0.0 - 3.6.2
splunk/universal_forwarder
9.1.0
splunk/universal_forwarder
8.2.0 - 8.2.12
Published
Nov 22, 2022
Tracked Since
Feb 18, 2026