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Fencer Intel
high 7.0

CVE-2012-6711 json

A heap-based buffer overflow exists in GNU Bash before 4.3 when wide characters, not supported by the current locale set in the LC_CTYPE en…

published 2019-06-18 7 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2012-6552

cvss
7.0
version 3.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 45%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A heap-based buffer overflow exists in GNU Bash before 4.3 when wide characters, not supported by the current locale set in the LC_CTYPE environment variable, are printed through the echo built-in function. A local attacker, who can provide data to print through the "echo -e" built-in function, may use this flaw to crash a script or execute code with the privileges of the bash process. This occurs because ansicstr() in lib/sh/strtrans.c mishandles u32cconv().

Patch / fix

  • bash Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2012-6711

  • bash SLES for SAP 12 SP1, SLES 12 SP1-LTSS 4.2-83.6.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2019:2976-1

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-2012-6711 updated cvss 7.0

bash: heap-based buffer overflow during echo of unsupported characters

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 bash
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 bash Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 bash Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 bash
    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

0.53% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 45% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.0 7.0 CVSS:3.0/AC:H/AV:L/A:H/C:H/I:H/PR:L/S:U/UI:N
CNA 3.0 7.0 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.0 7.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 4.6 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/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.