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CVE-2005-2491

20
FAUCET Score

CVE-2005-2491 describes an integer overflow vulnerability in the pcre_compile.c component of Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) versions prior to 6.2. This flaw, affecting products like Python, Ethereal, and PHP, allows attackers to execute arbitrary code through specially crafted regular expressions containing malicious quantifier values, leading to a heap-based buffer overflow. With a CVSS score of 7.5, this vulnerability is considered highly severe, requiring no authentication and having low attack complexity, potentially leading to partial compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. There is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code (Metasploit, Nuclei, ExploitDB), or significant community discussion or media coverage, suggesting it is not widely targeted.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
5.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:pcre:pcre:5.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
6.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:pcre:pcre:6.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
6.1CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:pcre:pcre:6.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 2.0

7.5HIGH

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Confidentiality Impact
PARTIAL
Integrity Impact
PARTIAL
Availability Impact
PARTIAL
Access Vector
NETWORK
Access Complexity
LOW
Authentication
NONE
Exploitability Score
10.0
Impact Score
6.4
CvssVersion
2.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
4.34%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
90.2%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-27
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0434 is in the 83rd percentile among its peer group of 51,551 CVEs.

Social Chatter

No social media mentions found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.1 Mastodon, and 0.4 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.1 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (5)

redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3Fixed in: pcre-0:3.9-10.2
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3Fixed in: python-0:2.2.3-6.2
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4Fixed in: exim-0:4.43-1.RHEL4.5
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4Fixed in: pcre-0:4.5-3.2.RHEL4
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4Fixed in: python-0:2.3.4-14.2
View patch

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2005-2491Moderate

pcre heap overflow

Aug 1, 2005

References

ftp.sco.com / pub/updates/OpenServer/SCOSA-2006.10/SCOSA-2006.10.txt
patches.sgi.com / support/free/security/advisories/20060401-01-U
docs.info.apple.com / article.html
itrc.hp.com / service/cki/docDisplay.do
lists.trustix.org / pipermail/tsl-announce/2005-October/000354.html
marc.info
marc.info
marc.info
secunia.com / advisories/16502
secunia.com / advisories/16679
secunia.com / advisories/17252
secunia.com / advisories/17813
secunia.com / advisories/19072
secunia.com / advisories/19193
secunia.com / advisories/19532
secunia.com / advisories/21522
secunia.com / advisories/22691
secunia.com / advisories/22875
securityreason.com / securityalert/604
securitytracker.com / id
Patch
lists.apache.org / thread.html/54a42d4b01968df1117cea77fc53d6beb931c0e05936ad02af93e9ac%40%3Ccvs.httpd.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org / thread.html/5df9bfb86a3b054bb985a45ff9250b0332c9ecc181eec232489e7f79%40%3Ccvs.httpd.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org / thread.html/r0276683d8e1e07153fc8642618830ac0ade85b9ae0dc7b07f63bb8fc%40%3Ccvs.httpd.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org / thread.html/r2cb985de917e7da0848c440535f65a247754db8b2154a10089e4247b%40%3Ccvs.httpd.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org / thread.html/r5001ecf3d6b2bdd0b732e527654248abb264f08390045d30709a92f6%40%3Ccvs.httpd.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org / thread.html/r8828e649175df56f1f9e3919938ac7826128525426e2748f0ab62feb%40%3Ccvs.httpd.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org / thread.html/r9e8622254184645bc963a1d47c5d47f6d5a36d6f080d8d2c43b2b142%40%3Ccvs.httpd.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org / thread.html/r9f93cf6dde308d42a9c807784e8102600d0397f5f834890708bf6920%40%3Ccvs.httpd.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org / thread.html/rafd145ba6cd0a4ced113a5823cdaff45aeb36eb09855b216401c66d6%40%3Ccvs.httpd.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org / thread.html/rd65d8ba68ba17e7deedafbf5bb4899f2ae4dad781d21b931c2941ac3%40%3Ccvs.httpd.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org / thread.html/re895fc1736d25c8cf57e102c871613b8aeec9ea26fd8a44e7942b5ab%40%3Ccvs.httpd.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org / thread.html/rf6449464fd8b7437704c55f88361b66f12d5b5f90bcce66af4be4ba9%40%3Ccvs.httpd.apache.org%3E
oval.cisecurity.org / repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A11516
oval.cisecurity.org / repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A1496
oval.cisecurity.org / repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A1659
oval.cisecurity.org / repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A735
sunsolve.sun.com / search/document.do
support.avaya.com / elmodocs2/security/ASA-2005-216.pdf
support.avaya.com / elmodocs2/security/ASA-2005-223.pdf
support.avaya.com / elmodocs2/security/ASA-2006-081.htm
support.avaya.com / elmodocs2/security/ASA-2006-159.htm
debian.org / security/2005/dsa-800
debian.org / security/2005/dsa-817
debian.org / security/2005/dsa-819
debian.org / security/2005/dsa-821
ethereal.com / appnotes/enpa-sa-00021.html
URL Repurposed
gentoo.org / security/en/glsa/glsa-200508-17.xml
gentoo.org / security/en/glsa/glsa-200509-02.xml
gentoo.org / security/en/glsa/glsa-200509-08.xml
gentoo.org / security/en/glsa/glsa-200509-12.xml
gentoo.org / security/en/glsa/glsa-200509-19.xml
novell.com / linux/security/advisories/2005_48_pcre.html
novell.com / linux/security/advisories/2005_49_php.html
novell.com / linux/security/advisories/2005_52_apache2.html
php.net / release_4_4_1.php
redhat.com / support/errata/RHSA-2005-358.html
redhat.com / support/errata/RHSA-2005-761.html
redhat.com / support/errata/RHSA-2006-0197.html
securityfocus.com / archive/1/427046/100/0/threaded
securityfocus.com / archive/1/428138/100/0/threaded
securityfocus.com / bid/14620
securityfocus.com / bid/15647
vupen.com / english/advisories/2005/1511
vupen.com / english/advisories/2005/2659
vupen.com / english/advisories/2006/0789
vupen.com / english/advisories/2006/4320
vupen.com / english/advisories/2006/4502