# CVE-2018-5710: Null dereference in n/a

> Remote authenticated users can cause a denial of service in the Kerberos Key Distribution Center via a modified kadmin client triggering a NULL pointer dereference.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 16 Jan 2018
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** ALPINE-CVE-2018-5710, CLEANSTART-2024-HW06037, DEBIAN-CVE-2018-5710, GHSA-6wfw-m2q3-x7rq, UBUNTU-CVE-2018-5710

## What is CVE-2018-5710?

CVE-2018-5710 is a medium-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 16 Jan 2018. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An issue was discovered in MIT Kerberos 5 (aka krb5) through 1.16. The pre-defined function "strlen" is getting a "NULL" string as a parameter value in plugins/kdb/ldap/libkdb_ldap/ldap_principal2.c in the Key Distribution Center (KDC), which allows remote authenticated users to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference) via a modified kadmin client.

Weakness: CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-5710?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Mit Kerberos.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-5710?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2018-5710 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-5710 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2009-4212](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-4212/): Integer overflow in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2004-0523](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2004-0523/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2010-0283](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2010-0283/): Denial of service in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2018-5709](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-5709/): Integer overflow in n/a (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2003-0138](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2003-0138/): Auth bypass in n/a (high 7.5)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-5710 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-5710 is a medium-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 16 Jan 2018. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-5710 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-2018-5710/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-5710/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-5710
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-5710
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-5710

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-5710/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.