# CVE-2008-1389: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can crash the ClamAV antivirus engine by submitting a malformed CHM file, requiring user interaction to process the file.

- **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:** 4 Sep 2008
- **Updated:** 7 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2008-1389, GHSA-r2w2-7wgr-pq2v

## What is CVE-2008-1389?

CVE-2008-1389 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Clam Anti-Virus Clamav, published on 4 Sep 2008. 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

libclamav/chmunpack.c in the chm-parser in ClamAV before 0.94 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) via a malformed CHM file, related to an "invalid memory access."

Weakness: CWE-399

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2008-1389?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Clam Anti-Virus Clamav.

## How do I fix CVE-2008-1389?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2008-1389 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2008-1389 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Clam Anti-Virus Clamav

- [CVE-2008-1100](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-1100/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2008-0318](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-0318/): Integer overflow in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2007-6337](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2007-6337/): Unspecified vulnerability in the bzip2 decompression algorithm in nsis/bzlib_private.h in ClamAV before 0.92 has unknown impact and remote attack vectors. (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2007-3023](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2007-3023/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2005-3587](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2005-3587/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2008-1389 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2008-1389 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Clam Anti-Virus Clamav, published on 4 Sep 2008. 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-2008-1389 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Clam Anti-Virus Clamav. 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-2008-1389/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-1389/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2008-1389
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2008-1389
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2008-1389

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-1389/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.