# CVE-2010-4052: Denial of service in n/a

> Attackers can cause denial of service in applications using glibc by submitting regular expressions with adjacent repetition operators, exhausting stack resources.

- **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:** 13 Jan 2011
- **Updated:** 7 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2010-4052, GHSA-xq2p-cgwj-87m3

## What is CVE-2010-4052?

CVE-2010-4052 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Gnu Glibc, published on 13 Jan 2011. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Stack consumption vulnerability in the regcomp implementation in the GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) through 2.11.3, and 2.12.x through 2.12.2, allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (resource exhaustion) via a regular expression containing adjacent repetition operators, as demonstrated by a {10,}{10,}{10,}{10,} sequence in the proftpd.gnu.c exploit for ProFTPD.

Weakness: CWE-399

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2010-4052?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Gnu Glibc.

## How do I fix CVE-2010-4052?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2010-4052 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2010-4052 exists.

Public exploit code:

- GNU glibc - 'regcomp()' Stack Exhaustion Denial of Service (exploitdb)
- GNU libc/regcomp(3) - Multiple Vulnerabilities (exploitdb)

## Other vulnerabilities in Gnu Glibc

- [CVE-2026-5450](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-5450/): scanf %mc off-by-one heap buffer overflow (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2023-25139](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-25139/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-1999-0199](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-1999-0199/): Other in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2019-1010022](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-1010022/): Security feature bypass in glibc (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2005-3590](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2005-3590/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 9.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2010-4052 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2010-4052 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Gnu Glibc, published on 13 Jan 2011. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2010-4052 exists.

Affected product: Gnu Glibc. 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-2010-4052/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2010-4052/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2010-4052
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2010-4052
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2010-4052

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2010-4052/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.