Vulnerability Monitor

The vendors, products, and vulnerabilities you care about

CVE-2015-1473

The ADDW macro in stdio-common/vfscanf.c in the GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) before 2.21 does not properly consider data-type size during a risk-management decision for use of the alloca function, which might allow context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (segmentation violation) or overwrite memory locations beyond the stack boundary via a long line containing wide characters that are improperly handled in a wscanf call.

Security Impact Summary

CVE-2015-1473 is a security vulnerability that . Impacting 2 products from canonical, from gnu organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

First disclosed in 2015, this vulnerability was reported during a period defined by widespread IoT adoption challenges, mobile security concerns, and the emergence of advanced persistent threat (APT) techniques. Contemporary mitigation strategies focused on secure development practices and third-party component vetting.

Published

2015-04-08T10:59:03.627

Last Modified

2025-04-12T10:46:40.837

Status

Deferred

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv2: 6.4 (MEDIUM)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:P

Access Vector: NETWORK
Access Complexity: LOW
Authentication: NONE
Confidentiality Impact: NONE
Integrity Impact: PARTIAL
Availability Impact: PARTIAL

Exploitability Score

10.0

Impact Score

4.9

Weaknesses

Type: Primary
CWE-119

Affected Vendors & Products

Type	Vendor	Product	Version/Range	Vulnerable?
Operating System	canonical	ubuntu_linux	10.04	Yes
Operating System	canonical	ubuntu_linux	12.04	Yes
Operating System	canonical	ubuntu_linux	14.04	Yes
Operating System	canonical	ubuntu_linux	14.10	Yes
Application	gnu	glibc	≤ 2.20	Yes

References

http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2015/02/04/1 ([email protected])
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/linuxbulletinoct2015-2719645.html ([email protected])
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/72499 ([email protected])
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-2519-1 ([email protected])
https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=glibc.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=5bd80bfe9ca0d955bfbbc002781bc7b01b6bcb06 ([email protected])
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2015/02/04/1 (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/linuxbulletinoct2015-2719645.html (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/72499 (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-2519-1 (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=glibc.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=5bd80bfe9ca0d955bfbbc002781bc7b01b6bcb06 (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For canonical's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.