CVE-2023-38253

Publication date 14 July 2023

Last updated 19 August 2025

Ubuntu priority

Cvss 3 Severity Score

Description

An out-of-bounds read flaw was found in w3m, in the growbuf_to_Str function in indep.c. This issue may allow an attacker to cause a denial of service through a crafted HTML file.

Read the notes from the security team

Why is this CVE low priority?

Greatest impact is a crash (and therefore denial-of-service) in this command-line application - no real security impact.

Learn more about Ubuntu priority

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
w3m	25.10 questing	Fixed 0.5.3+git20230121-2ubuntu1
	25.04 plucky	Fixed 0.5.3+git20230121-2ubuntu1
	24.10 oracular	Fixed 0.5.3+git20230121-2ubuntu1
	24.04 LTS noble	Fixed 0.5.3+git20230121-2ubuntu1
	23.10 mantic	Fixed 0.5.3+git20230121-2ubuntu0.23.10.1
	23.04 lunar	Fixed 0.5.3+git20230121-2ubuntu0.23.04.1
	22.10 kinetic	Ignored end of life, was needs-triage
	22.04 LTS jammy	Fixed 0.5.3+git20210102-6ubuntu0.2
	20.04 LTS focal	Fixed 0.5.3-37ubuntu0.2
	18.04 LTS bionic	Fixed 0.5.3-36ubuntu0.1+esm1
	16.04 LTS xenial	Needs evaluation
	14.04 LTS trusty	Needs evaluation

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Notes

hlibk

This vulnerability was fixed with the patch for CVE-2023-4255

Patch details

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

Package	Patch details
w3m	Upstream: edc6026

Severity score breakdown

Parameter	Value
Base score	4.7 · Medium
Attack vector	Local
Attack complexity	High
Privileges required	None
User interaction	Required
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality	None
Integrity impact	None
Availability impact	High
Vector	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H