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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2018-6196 json

w3m through 0.5.3 is prone to an infinite recursion flaw in HTMLlineproc0 because the feed_table_block_tag function in table.c does not pre…

published 8y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2018-17957

cvss
7.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.9%
EPSS 2.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 87%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

w3m through 0.5.3 is prone to an infinite recursion flaw in HTMLlineproc0 because the feed_table_block_tag function in table.c does not prevent a negative indent value.

Patch / fix

  • w3m Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 0.5.3-36

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2018-6196

  • w3m Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 0.5.3-15ubuntu0.2
  • w3m Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 0.5.3-26ubuntu0.2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2018-6196

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

  • w3m SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES 12 SP4 +3 more 0.5.3.git20161120-161.3.4

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2019:0776-1

  • w3m openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.5.3+git20180125-1.14

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11504-1

  • w3m Alpine 3.21, Alpine 3.20, Alpine 3.19 +11 more 0.5.3.20180125-r0
  • w3m Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 0.5.3_git20241203-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2018-6196

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Is CVE-2018-6196 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-2018-6196 updated cvss 3.3

w3m: Infinite recursion in HTMLlineproc0

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 w3m Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 w3m, w3m-img
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 w3m, w3m-img
    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

2.94% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 87% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/tats/w3m/issues/88 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 7.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-835 Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition

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.