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CVE-2018-9251

20
FAUCET Score

CVE-2018-9251 describes a denial-of-service vulnerability in the xz_decomp function of libxml2 version 2.9.8 when compiled with LZMA support, affecting products like Debian Linux. A remote attacker can trigger an infinite loop by providing a specially crafted XML file, leading to system unavailability. This medium-severity vulnerability (CVSS 5.3) requires user interaction and has a high impact on availability, but no impact on confidentiality or integrity. There is currently no public exploit code available, no evidence of active exploitation, and minimal community discussion or media coverage.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
2.9.8CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:xmlsoft:libxml2:2.9.8:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
8.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.0

5.3MEDIUM

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
HIGH
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
NONE
Integrity Impact
NONE
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
1.6
Impact Score
3.6
CvssVersion
3.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
2.44%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
82.6%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-27
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0244 is in the 88th percentile among its peer group of 707 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.2 Bluesky, 0.0 Mastodon, and 0.2 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.2 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (1)

redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8Fixed in: libxml2-0:2.9.7-7.el8
View patch

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2018-9251Low

libxml2: infinite loop in xz_decomp function in xzlib.c

Apr 3, 2018

References

bugzilla.gnome.org / show_bug.cgi
ExploitIssue TrackingThird Party Advisory
lists.debian.org / debian-lts-announce/2018/09/msg00035.html
Third Party Advisory