Skip to content
Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2017-2640 json

An out-of-bounds write flaw was found in the way Pidgin before 2.12.0 processed XML content.

published 2018-07-27 8 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-11800

cvss
7.5
version 3.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
6.2%
EPSS 6.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 93%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

An out-of-bounds write flaw was found in the way Pidgin before 2.12.0 processed XML content. A malicious remote server could potentially use this flaw to crash Pidgin or execute arbitrary code in the context of the pidgin process.

Patch / fix

  • pidgin pidgin 2.12.0
  • pidgin Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.12.0-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-2640

  • pidgin Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 1:2.10.9-0ubuntu3.4
  • pidgin Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 1:2.10.12-0ubuntu5.2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-2640

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

  • pidgin RHEL 7 2.10.11-5.el7
  • finch RHEL 7 2.10.11-5.el7
  • libpurple RHEL 7 2.10.11-5.el7
  • pidgin-perl RHEL 7 2.10.11-5.el7
  • libpurple-tcl RHEL 7 2.10.11-5.el7
  • libpurple-perl RHEL 7 2.10.11-5.el7

red hat advisories RHSA-2017:1854

  • pidgin SLE Software Development Kit 11 SP4 2.6.6-0.30.3.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2018:2235-1

  • pidgin openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.14.7-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11172-1

  • pidgin Alpine 3.2 2.10.11-r1
  • pidgin Alpine 3.3 2.10.11-r3
  • pidgin Alpine 3.5, Alpine 3.4 2.11.0-r1

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2017-2640

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-2017-2640 updated cvss 7.5

pidgin: Out-of-bounds write in purple_markup_unescape_entity triggered by invalid XML

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 pidgin Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 finch, pidgin, libpurple, pidgin-perl, libpurple-tcl, libpurple-perl
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) pidgin 2.10.11-5.el7, libpurple 2.10.11-5.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) finch 2.10.11-5.el7, pidgin-perl 2.10.11-5.el7, libpurple-tcl 2.10.11-5.el7, libpurple-perl 2.10.11-5.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) pidgin 2.10.11-5.el7, libpurple 2.10.11-5.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) finch 2.10.11-5.el7, pidgin 2.10.11-5.el7, pidgin-perl 2.10.11-5.el7, libpurple-tcl 2.10.11-5.el7, libpurple-perl 2.10.11-5.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) pidgin 2.10.11-5.el7, libpurple 2.10.11-5.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) finch 2.10.11-5.el7, pidgin-perl 2.10.11-5.el7, libpurple-tcl 2.10.11-5.el7, libpurple-perl 2.10.11-5.el7
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:1854

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

6.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 93% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.0 7.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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

Affected products

  • Pidgin pidgin

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.