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Fencer Intel
high 8.8

CVE-2017-2896 json

Out-of-bounds write and stack based buffer overflow vulnerabilities

published 2017-11-20 8 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also CVE-2017-2897 , CVE-2017-2919 , CVE-2017-12108 , CVE-2017-12109 , CVE-2017-12110 , CVE-2017-12111 , EUVD-2017-12037 , RSEC-2023-0

cvss
8.8
version 3.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.1%
EPSS 2.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 82%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

An exploitable out-of-bounds write vulnerability exists in the xls_mergedCells function of libxls 1.4. . A specially crafted XLS file can cause a memory corruption resulting in remote code execution. An attacker can send malicious XLS file to trigger this vulnerability.

Patch / fix

  • cran readxl 1.1.0
  • r-cran-readxl Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1.0.0-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-2896

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-2017-2896 updated cvss 7.8

libxls: out-of-bounds write vulnerability exists in the xls_mergedCells function could result in remote code execution

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    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

2.14% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 82% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.0 8.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
cran readxl
>=0.1.0, <1.1.0
1.1.0

Affected products

  • libxls libxls

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.