# CVE-2009-3626: Denial of service in n/a

> Attackers can crash Perl applications by sending UTF-8 characters with invalid codepoints during regex matching, causing denial of service.

- **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:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 29 Oct 2009
- **Updated:** 7 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2009-3626, GHSA-pr3m-646v-qvfc

## What is CVE-2009-3626?

CVE-2009-3626 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 29 Oct 2009. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Perl 5.10.1 allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) via a UTF-8 character with a large, invalid codepoint, which is not properly handled during a regular-expression match.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2009-3626?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Perl Perl.

## How do I fix CVE-2009-3626?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2009-3626 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2009-3626 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2026-4176](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-4176/): Supply chain in perl (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2022-48522](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-48522/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2017-12814](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-12814/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2015-8608](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-8608/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2026-13221](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-13221/): Integer overflow in perl:perl (critical 9.1)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2009-3626 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2009-3626 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 29 Oct 2009. 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-2009-3626 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-2009-3626/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-3626/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-3626
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2009-3626
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2009-3626

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-3626/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.