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Fencer Intel
medium 5.0

CVE-2011-4603 json

The silc_channel_message function in ops.c in the SILC protocol plugin in libpurple in Pidgin before 2.10.1 does not perform the expected U…

published 2011-12-17 14 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2011-4527

cvss
5.0
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
3.6%
EPSS 3.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 89%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The silc_channel_message function in ops.c in the SILC protocol plugin in libpurple in Pidgin before 2.10.1 does not perform the expected UTF-8 validation on message data, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) via a crafted message, a different vulnerability than CVE-2011-3594.

Patch / fix

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

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2011-4603

  • pidgin RHEL 4 2.6.6-10.el4
  • pidgin RHEL 5 PRODUCTIVITY, RHEL 5 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4
  • finch RHEL 4 2.6.6-10.el4
  • finch RHEL 5 PRODUCTIVITY, RHEL 5 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4
  • libpurple RHEL 4 2.6.6-10.el4
  • libpurple RHEL 5 PRODUCTIVITY, RHEL 5 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4
  • pidgin-perl RHEL 4 2.6.6-10.el4
  • pidgin-perl RHEL 5 PRODUCTIVITY, RHEL 5 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4

red hat advisories RHSA-2011:1820

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-2011-4603 updated cvss 4.3

pidgin: SILC remote crash on channel messages

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 4 finch 2.6.6-10.el4, pidgin 2.6.6-10.el4, libpurple 2.6.6-10.el4, pidgin-perl 2.6.6-10.el4, libpurple-tcl 2.6.6-10.el4, libpurple-perl 2.6.6-10.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) finch 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4, pidgin 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4, libpurple 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4, pidgin-perl 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4, libpurple-tcl 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4, libpurple-perl 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop version 4 finch 2.6.6-10.el4, pidgin 2.6.6-10.el4, libpurple 2.6.6-10.el4, pidgin-perl 2.6.6-10.el4, libpurple-tcl 2.6.6-10.el4, libpurple-perl 2.6.6-10.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 4 finch 2.6.6-10.el4, pidgin 2.6.6-10.el4, libpurple 2.6.6-10.el4, pidgin-perl 2.6.6-10.el4, libpurple-tcl 2.6.6-10.el4, libpurple-perl 2.6.6-10.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 4 finch 2.6.6-10.el4, pidgin 2.6.6-10.el4, libpurple 2.6.6-10.el4, pidgin-perl 2.6.6-10.el4, libpurple-tcl 2.6.6-10.el4, libpurple-perl 2.6.6-10.el4 Red Hat RHEL Desktop Workstation (v. 5 client) pidgin 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4
    +1 more products
    Red Hat RHEL Optional Productivity Applications (v. 5 server) finch 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4, pidgin 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4, libpurple 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4, pidgin-perl 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4, libpurple-tcl 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4, libpurple-perl 2.6.6-5.el5_7.4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2011:1820
  • 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

3.60% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 89% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

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.