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Fencer Intel
medium 5.9

CVE-2012-6702 json

Expat, when used in a parser that has not called XML_SetHashSalt or passed it a seed of 0, makes it easier for context-dependent attackers…

published 2016-06-16 10 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2012-6544

cvss
5.9
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.4%
EPSS 2.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 83%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Expat, when used in a parser that has not called XML_SetHashSalt or passed it a seed of 0, makes it easier for context-dependent attackers to defeat cryptographic protection mechanisms via vectors involving use of the srand function.

Patch / fix

  • libexpat_project libexpat 2.2.0
  • expat Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.1.1-3

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2012-6702

  • expat Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 2.1.0-4ubuntu1.3
  • expat Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 2.1.0-7ubuntu0.16.04.2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2012-6702

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • expat SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for SAP 12 SP1, SLES for Raspberry Pi 12 SP2 +6 more 2.1.0-20.2
  • expat Studio Onsite 1.3, SLES for SAP 11 SP4, SLES 11 SP4 +1 more 2.0.1-88.41.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2017:0424-1SUSE-SU-2017:0415-1

  • expat openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.2.0-3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10077-1

  • expat Alpine 3.4, Alpine 3.3, Alpine 3.2 2.2.0-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2012-6702

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

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-2012-6702 updated cvss 4.3

expat: Using XML_Parse before rand() results into non-random output

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 expat, xmlrpc-c Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 expat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 expat Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6 expat Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Web Server 2 expat Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Web Server 3 expat
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Directory Server 8 expat
    under investigation
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 firefox, xulrunner, thunderbird Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 firefox, xulrunner, thunderbird, compat-expat1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 firefox, xulrunner, thunderbird Red Hat JBoss Core Services expat
    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

2.37% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 83% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 5.9 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N

Classification

Weakness

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.