# CVE-2004-2779: Denial of service in n/a

> A flaw in libid3tag allows attackers to cause a denial of service via memory exhaustion by providing malformed UTF-16 ID3v2 tags.

- **Severity:** High 7.5 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 20 Feb 2018
- **Updated:** 17 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** AZL-36950, AZL-7261, DEBIAN-CVE-2004-2779, GHSA-3qq6-672j-jx3v

## What is CVE-2004-2779?

CVE-2004-2779 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 20 Feb 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

id3_utf16_deserialize() in utf16.c in libid3tag through 0.15.1b misparses ID3v2 tags encoded in UTF-16 with an odd number of bytes, triggering an endless loop allocating memory until an OOM condition is reached, leading to denial-of-service (DoS).

Weakness: CWE-399

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2004-2779?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Underbit Libid3tag.

## How do I fix CVE-2004-2779?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2004-2779 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2004-2779 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2004-2779 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2004-2779 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 20 Feb 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2004-2779 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-2004-2779/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2004-2779/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2004-2779
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2004-2779
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2004-2779

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2004-2779/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.