# CVE-2004-1617: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can cause a denial of service in Lynx via malicious HTML with large COLS values, requiring user interaction to view the page.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.0 (`AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 20 Feb 2005
- **Updated:** 8 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2004-1617, DSA-1076-1, DSA-1077-1, GHSA-j8fp-ff64-g7r6

## What is CVE-2004-1617?

CVE-2004-1617 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 20 Feb 2005. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

Lynx, lynx-ssl, and lynx-cur before 2.8.6dev.8 allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) via a web page or HTML email that contains invalid HTML including (1) a TEXTAREA tag with a large COLS value and (2) a large tag name in an element that is not terminated, as demonstrated by mangleme.  NOTE: a followup suggests that the relevant trigger for this issue is the large COLS value.

Weakness: CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2004-1617?

It affects 1 product.


Products: University of Kansas Lynx.

## How do I fix CVE-2004-1617?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2004-1617 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2004-1617 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-1999-0817](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-1999-0817/): Command injection in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2000-0209](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2000-0209/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 7.6)
- [CVE-2005-2929](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2005-2929/): Command injection in n/a (high 7.5)
- [CVE-1999-0371](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-1999-0371/): Path traversal in n/a (low 1.2)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2004-1617 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2004-1617 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 20 Feb 2005. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2004-1617 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2004-1617/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2004-1617/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2004-1617
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2004-1617
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2004-1617

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2004-1617/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.