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Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2015-8777 json

The process_envvars function in elf/rtld.c in the GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) before 2.23 allows local users to bypass a pointer-gua…

published 10y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2015-8649

cvss
5.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.6%
EPSS 0.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 47%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The process_envvars function in elf/rtld.c in the GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) before 2.23 allows local users to bypass a pointer-guarding protection mechanism via a zero value of the LD_POINTER_GUARD environment variable.

Patch / fix

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

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2015-8777

  • eglibc Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 2.19-0ubuntu6.8

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2015-8777

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 2.17-196.el7
  • nscd RHEL 7 2.17-196.el7
  • glibc-utils RHEL 7 2.17-196.el7
  • glibc-common RHEL 7 2.17-196.el7
  • glibc-debuginfo-common RHEL 7 2.17-196.el7

red hat advisories RHSA-2017:1916

  • glibc SLES for SAP 11 SP4, SLES for SAP 11 SP3, SLES 11 SP4 +6 more 2.11.3-17.95.2
  • glibc SLES for SAP 12, SLES 12, SLED 12 +1 more 2.19-22.13.1
  • glibc SLES for SAP 12 SP1, SLES 12 SP1, SLED 12 SP1 +1 more 2.19-35.1
  • glibc SLES 11 SP2-LTSS 2.11.3-17.45.66.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2016:0472-1SUSE-SU-2016:0470-1SUSE-SU-2016:0473-1SUSE-SU-2016:0471-1

  • glibc openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.24-2.3

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10154-1

Is CVE-2015-8777 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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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-2015-8777 updated cvss 7.0

glibc: LD_POINTER_GUARD in the environment is not sanitized

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 glibc Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 nscd, glibc, glibc-utils, glibc-common
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) nscd 2.17-196.el7, glibc 2.17-196.el7, glibc-utils 2.17-196.el7, glibc-common 2.17-196.el7, glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-196.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-196.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode (v. 7) nscd 2.17-196.el7, glibc 2.17-196.el7, glibc-utils 2.17-196.el7, glibc-common 2.17-196.el7, glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-196.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode Optional (v. 7) glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-196.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) nscd 2.17-196.el7, glibc 2.17-196.el7, glibc-utils 2.17-196.el7, glibc-common 2.17-196.el7, glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-196.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-196.el7
    +2 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) nscd 2.17-196.el7, glibc 2.17-196.el7, glibc-utils 2.17-196.el7, glibc-common 2.17-196.el7, glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-196.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-196.el7
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:1916

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

0.57% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 47% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • hmarco.org http://hmarco.org/bugs/glibc_ptr_mangle_weakness.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 5.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
NVD 2.0 2.1 AV:L/AC:L/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.