CVE-2018-19876 Use after free in n/a

Medium 6.5 Published 5 Dec 2018 Updated 15 Oct 2026

An attacker can cause a denial of service in applications using Cairo by triggering a memory management error that leads to an application crash.

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-2018-19876?

CVE-2018-19876 is a medium-severity use after free vulnerability in n/a, published on 5 Dec 2018. 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

cairo 1.16.0, in cairo_ft_apply_variations() in cairo-ft-font.c, would free memory using a free function incompatible with WebKit's fastMalloc, leading to an application crash with a "free(): invalid pointer" error.

Weakness: CWE-416

Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-19876?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Cairographics Cairo.

How do I fix CVE-2018-19876?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.

Is CVE-2018-19876 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-19876 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

Also known as ALPINE-CVE-2018-19876, DEBIAN-CVE-2018-19876, GHSA-m5xr-7jg3-vh46, JLSEC-2025-14.