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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2012-5642 json

server/action.py in Fail2ban before 0.8.8 does not properly handle the content of the matches tag, which might allow remote attackers to tr…

published 2012-12-31 13 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2012-5526

cvss
7.5
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
3.1%
EPSS 3.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 87%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

server/action.py in Fail2ban before 0.8.8 does not properly handle the content of the matches tag, which might allow remote attackers to trigger unsafe behavior in a custom action file via unspecified symbols in this content.

Patch / fix

  • fail2ban Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 0.8.6-3wheezy1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2012-5642

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-2012-5642 updated cvss 5.1

fail2ban: does not escape the content of <matches>

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    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

3.12% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 87% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 7.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

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.