Detections
Analytics

FreeBSD : expat: improper restriction of xml entity expansion depth (8f71ad3b-14f5-11f0-87ba-002590c1f29c)

high Nessus Plugin ID 234077

Language:

Synopsis

The remote FreeBSD host is missing one or more security-related updates.

Description

The version of FreeBSD installed on the remote host is prior to tested version. It is, therefore, affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the 8f71ad3b-14f5-11f0-87ba-002590c1f29c advisory.

 [email protected] reports:
 A stack overflow vulnerability exists in the libexpat library due to the way it handles recursive entity expansion in XML documents.
 When parsing an XML document with deeply nested entity references, libexpat can be forced to recurse indefinitely, exhausting the stack space and causing a crash. This issue could lead to denial of service (DoS) or, in some cases, exploitable memory corruption, depending on the environment and library usage.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the FreeBSD security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Update the affected packages.

See Also

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-8176

http://www.nessus.org/u?0b911a90

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 234077

File Name: freebsd_pkg_8f71ad3b14f511f087ba002590c1f29c.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Published: 4/9/2025

Updated: 4/9/2025

Supported Sensors: Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.1

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.8

Temporal Score: 5.8

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2024-8176

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.5

Temporal Score: 6.5

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:freebsd:freebsd:expat, cpe:/o:freebsd:freebsd

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/FreeBSD/release, Host/FreeBSD/pkg_info

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 4/9/2025

Vulnerability Publication Date: 3/11/2025

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2024-8176

IAVA: 2025-A-0186