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Fencer Intel
critical 9.8

CVE-2017-10685 json

In ncurses 6.0, there is a format string vulnerability in the fmt_entry function.

published 2017-06-29 9 y ago modified 2026-07-23 3 mo ago also EUVD-2017-2332

cvss
9.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
4.3%
EPSS 4.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 91%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In ncurses 6.0, there is a format string vulnerability in the fmt_entry function. A crafted input will lead to a remote arbitrary code execution attack.

Patch / fix

  • ncurses Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.0+20170701-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-10685

  • ncurses Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 5.9+20140118-1ubuntu1+esm1
  • ncurses Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 6.0+20160213-1ubuntu1+esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-10685

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

  • ncurses SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for Raspberry Pi 12 SP2 +6 more 5.9-50.1
  • ncurses SLES for SAP 11 SP4, SLES 11 SP4, SLE Software Development Kit 11 SP4 5.6-93.6.1
  • ncurses SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for Raspberry Pi 12 SP2, SLES 12 SP2 +2 more 5.9-44.1
  • ncurses SLES for SAP 11 SP4, SLES 11 SP4, SLE Software Development Kit 11 SP4 5.6-92.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2017:2075-1SUSE-SU-2017:2076-1SUSE-SU-2017:1815-1SUSE-SU-2017:1790-1

  • ncurses Alpine 3.3 6.0-r7
  • ncurses Alpine 3.6, Alpine 3.5, Alpine 3.4 6.0-r8

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2017-10685

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-2017-10685 updated cvss 0.0

ncurses: Stack-based buffer overflow caused by format string vulnerability in fmt_entry function

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 ncurses Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 ncurses, ncurses-base, ncurses-libs, ncurses-term Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 ncurses, ncurses-base, ncurses-libs, ncurses-term
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”

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

4.29% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 91% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 9.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-134 Use of Externally-Controlled Format String

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.