CVE-2016-3191

Publication date 17 March 2016

Last updated 25 August 2025

Ubuntu priority

Cvss 3 Severity Score

Description

The compile_branch function in pcre_compile.c in PCRE 8.x before 8.39 and pcre2_compile.c in PCRE2 before 10.22 mishandles patterns containing an (*ACCEPT) substring in conjunction with nested parentheses, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (stack-based buffer overflow) via a crafted regular expression, as demonstrated by a JavaScript RegExp object encountered by Konqueror, aka ZDI-CAN-3542.

Read the notes from the security team

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
pcre2	18.10 cosmic	Not affected
	18.04 LTS bionic	Not affected
	17.10 artful	Ignored end of life
	17.04 zesty	Ignored end of life
	16.10 yakkety	Ignored end of life
	16.04 LTS xenial	Not affected
	15.10 wily	Not in release
	14.04 LTS trusty	Not in release
	12.04 LTS precise	Not in release
pcre3	18.10 cosmic	Not affected
	18.04 LTS bionic	Not affected
	17.10 artful	Not affected
	17.04 zesty	Not affected
	16.10 yakkety	Not affected
	16.04 LTS xenial	Not affected
	15.10 wily	Fixed 2:8.35-7.1ubuntu1.3
	14.04 LTS trusty	Fixed 1:8.31-2ubuntu2.2
	12.04 LTS precise	Not affected

Notes

mdeslaur

apply-upstream-revision-1631-closes-8159 in unstable doesn't reproduce on precise

Patch details

For informational purposes only. We recommend not to cherry-pick updates. How can I get the fixes?

Package	Patch details
pcre2	Upstream: http://vcs.pcre.org/pcre2?view=revision&revision=489
pcre3	Upstream: http://vcs.pcre.org/pcre?view=revision&revision=1631

Severity score breakdown

Parameter	Value
Base score	9.8 · Critical
Attack vector	Network
Attack complexity	Low
Privileges required	None
User interaction	None
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality	High
Integrity impact	High
Availability impact	High
Vector	CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H