CVE-2017-5950 Denial of service in n/a

Medium 5.5 Published 3 Apr 2017 Updated 3 Nov 2025

Remote attackers can cause a denial of service via stack consumption and application crash by providing a crafted YAML file to the yaml-cpp library.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Not needed
Attackable: Local or same network only
Victim action needed: A user has to click or open something
Fix: Available

What is CVE-2017-5950?

CVE-2017-5950 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 3 Apr 2017. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

Official description

The SingleDocParser::HandleNode function in yaml-cpp (aka LibYaml-C++) 0.5.3 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (stack consumption and application crash) via a crafted YAML file.

Weakness: CWE-119

Which versions are affected by CVE-2017-5950?

It affects 1 product.

Linux distribution packages (5)

`yaml-cpp` SUSE:Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP2	All versions	`0.5.3-3.3.2`
`yaml-cpp` SUSE:Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP3	All versions	`0.5.3-3.3.2`
`yaml-cpp` SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 12 SP2	All versions	`0.5.3-3.3.2`
`yaml-cpp` SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 12 SP3	All versions	`0.5.3-3.3.2`
`yaml-cpp` openSUSE:Tumbleweed	All versions	`0.6.3-1.8`

Products include Yaml-Cpp Project Yaml-Cpp.

How do I fix CVE-2017-5950?

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-2017-5950 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-5950 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2017-5950, GHSA-wm2p-97xq-7h48, JLSEC-2026-23, MGASA-2018-0471, SUSE-SU-2018:0631-1, UBUNTU-CVE-2017-5950 and 1 more.