CVE-2013-0338 Denial of service in n/a

Medium 4.3 Published 25 Apr 2013 Updated 6 Aug 2024

Attackers can cause denial of service via CPU and memory exhaustion by providing malicious XML files with entity expansion to applications using libxml2.

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

What is CVE-2013-0338?

CVE-2013-0338 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 25 Apr 2013. 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

libxml2 2.9.0 and earlier allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU and memory consumption) via an XML file containing an entity declaration with long replacement text and many references to this entity, aka "internal entity expansion" with linear complexity.

Weakness: CWE-119

Which versions are affected by CVE-2013-0338?

It affects 3 products.

Linux distribution packages (24)

`libxml2` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::server	All versions	`0:2.6.26-2.1.21.el5_9.1`
`libxml2-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::server	All versions	`0:2.6.26-2.1.21.el5_9.1`
`libxml2-devel` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::server	All versions	`0:2.6.26-2.1.21.el5_9.1`
`libxml2-python` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::server	All versions	`0:2.6.26-2.1.21.el5_9.1`
`libxml2` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::client	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::client	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-devel` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::client	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-python` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::client	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-static` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::client	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::computenode	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::computenode	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-devel` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::computenode	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-python` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::computenode	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-static` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::computenode	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::server	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::server	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-devel` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::server	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-python` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::server	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-static` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::server	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::workstation	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::workstation	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-devel` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::workstation	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-python` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::workstation	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`
`libxml2-static` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:6::workstation	All versions	`0:2.7.6-12.el6_4.1`

Products include Canonical Ubuntu Linux, Opensuse Opensuse, Xmlsoft Libxml2.

How do I fix CVE-2013-0338?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2013-0338 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2013-0338 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Canonical Ubuntu Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2013-0338, GHSA-pvmp-h985-7qh3, RHSA-2013:0581.