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Fencer Intel
medium 4.3

CVE-2011-3594 json

The g_markup_escape_text function in the SILC protocol plug-in in libpurple 2.10.0 and earlier, as used in Pidgin and possibly other produc…

published 2011-11-04 15 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2011-3553

cvss
4.3
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
3.2%
EPSS 3.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 88%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The g_markup_escape_text function in the SILC protocol plug-in in libpurple 2.10.0 and earlier, as used in Pidgin and possibly other products, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via invalid UTF-8 sequences that trigger use of invalid pointers and an out-of-bounds read, related to interactions with certain versions of glib2.

Patch / fix

  • pidgin Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.10.1-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2011-3594

  • pidgin RHEL 4 2.6.6-7.el4
  • pidgin RHEL 5 PRODUCTIVITY, RHEL 5 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1
  • finch RHEL 4 2.6.6-7.el4
  • finch RHEL 5 PRODUCTIVITY, RHEL 5 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1
  • libpurple RHEL 4 2.6.6-7.el4
  • libpurple RHEL 5 PRODUCTIVITY, RHEL 5 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1
  • pidgin-perl RHEL 4 2.6.6-7.el4
  • pidgin-perl RHEL 5 PRODUCTIVITY, RHEL 5 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1

red hat advisories RHSA-2011:1371

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2011-3594 updated cvss 4.3

libpurple: invalid UTF-8 string handling in SILC messages

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 4 finch 2.6.6-7.el4, pidgin 2.6.6-7.el4, libpurple 2.6.6-7.el4, pidgin-perl 2.6.6-7.el4, libpurple-tcl 2.6.6-7.el4, libpurple-perl 2.6.6-7.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) finch 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1, pidgin 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1, libpurple 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1, pidgin-perl 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1, libpurple-tcl 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1, libpurple-perl 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop version 4 finch 2.6.6-7.el4, pidgin 2.6.6-7.el4, libpurple 2.6.6-7.el4, pidgin-perl 2.6.6-7.el4, libpurple-tcl 2.6.6-7.el4, libpurple-perl 2.6.6-7.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 4 finch 2.6.6-7.el4, pidgin 2.6.6-7.el4, libpurple 2.6.6-7.el4, pidgin-perl 2.6.6-7.el4, libpurple-tcl 2.6.6-7.el4, libpurple-perl 2.6.6-7.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 4 finch 2.6.6-7.el4, pidgin 2.6.6-7.el4, libpurple 2.6.6-7.el4, pidgin-perl 2.6.6-7.el4, libpurple-tcl 2.6.6-7.el4, libpurple-perl 2.6.6-7.el4 Red Hat RHEL Desktop Workstation (v. 5 client) pidgin 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1
    +1 more products
    Red Hat RHEL Optional Productivity Applications (v. 5 server) finch 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1, pidgin 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1, libpurple 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1, pidgin-perl 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1, libpurple-tcl 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1, libpurple-perl 2.6.6-5.el5_7.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2011:1371
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 finch, pidgin, libpurple, pidgin-perl, libpurple-tcl, libpurple-perl
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

3.19% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 88% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • developer.pidgin.im http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/14636 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-119 Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.