# CVE-2018-13420: Denial of service in n/a

> A reported memory leak in gperftools could theoretically lead to resource exhaustion, though maintainers dispute this as a false positive.

- **Severity:** High 7.5 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 7 Jul 2018
- **Updated:** 14 Nov 2024
- **Also known as:** AZL-6453, DEBIAN-CVE-2018-13420, GHSA-jc8c-gg53-wcm7, UBUNTU-CVE-2018-13420

## What is CVE-2018-13420?

CVE-2018-13420 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 7 Jul 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Google gperftools 2.7 has a memory leak in malloc_extension.cc, related to MallocExtension::Register and InitModule. NOTE: the software maintainer indicates that this is not a bug; it is only a false-positive report from the LeakSanitizer program

Weakness: CWE-772 (Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-13420?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Gperftools Project Gperftools.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-13420?

No fix published yet.

## Is CVE-2018-13420 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-13420 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-13420 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-13420 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 7 Jul 2018. 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-2018-13420 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-2018-13420/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-13420/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-13420
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-13420
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-13420

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-13420/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.