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Fencer Intel
medium 5.0

CVE-2014-8121 json

DB_LOOKUP in nss_files/files-XXX.c in the Name Service Switch (NSS) in GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) 2.21 and earlier does not properl…

published 2015-03-27 11 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2014-7966

cvss
5.0
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
5.6%
EPSS 5.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 92%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

DB_LOOKUP in nss_files/files-XXX.c in the Name Service Switch (NSS) in GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) 2.21 and earlier does not properly check if a file is open, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) by performing a look-up on a database while iterating over it, which triggers the file pointer to be reset.

Patch / fix

  • glibc Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.21-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2014-8121

  • eglibc Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 2.19-0ubuntu6.8

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2014-8121

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

  • glibc RHEL 7 2.17-78.el7
  • nscd RHEL 7 2.17-78.el7
  • glibc-utils RHEL 7 2.17-78.el7
  • glibc-common RHEL 7 2.17-78.el7
  • glibc-debuginfo-common RHEL 7 2.17-78.el7

red hat advisories RHSA-2015:0327

  • glibc SLES for SAP 12, SLES 12, SLED 12 +1 more 2.19-22.7.1
  • glibc SLES for SAP 11 SP4, SLES for SAP 11 SP3, SLES 11 SP4 +6 more 2.11.3-17.87.3
  • glibc SLES 11 SP2-LTSS 2.11.3-17.45.66.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2016:0470-1SUSE-SU-2015:1844-1SUSE-SU-2015:1424-1

  • glibc openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.24-2.3

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10154-1

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-2014-8121 updated cvss 3.3

glibc: Unexpected closing of nss_files databases after lookups causes denial of service

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 glibc Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 nscd, glibc, glibc-utils, glibc-common
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) nscd 2.17-78.el7, glibc 2.17-78.el7, glibc-utils 2.17-78.el7, glibc-common 2.17-78.el7, glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-78.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-78.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode (v. 7) nscd 2.17-78.el7, glibc 2.17-78.el7, glibc-utils 2.17-78.el7, glibc-common 2.17-78.el7, glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-78.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode Optional (v. 7) glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-78.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) nscd 2.17-78.el7, glibc 2.17-78.el7, glibc-utils 2.17-78.el7, glibc-common 2.17-78.el7, glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-78.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-78.el7
    +2 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) nscd 2.17-78.el7, glibc 2.17-78.el7, glibc-utils 2.17-78.el7, glibc-common 2.17-78.el7, glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-78.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-78.el7
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2015:0327

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

5.61% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 92% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • bugzilla.redhat.com https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1165192 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • sourceware.org https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2015-02/msg00617.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

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

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.