CVE Intelligence
Skip to main content
MEDIUMpublic exploit

CVE-2018-16890

CVE-2018-16890 Vulnerability Analysis & Exploit Intelligence

libcurl versions from 7.36.0 to before 7.64.0 is vulnerable to a heap buffer out-of-bounds read. The function handling incoming NTLM type-2 messages (`lib/vauth/ntlm.c:ntlm_decode_type2_target`) does not validate incoming data correctly and is subject to an integer overflow vulnerability. Using that overflow, a malicious or broken NTLM server could trick libcurl to accept a bad length + offset combination that would lead to a buffer read out-of-bounds.

Published Updated Sources: cvelistV5, redhat

Triage

Is it exploited, how likely is exploitation, what does it touch, and how severe do the scoring sources call it.

Exploitation

Exploit code

public exploit, none observed

EPSS

5%

chance of exploitation in 30 days

Affects

the curl project

curl

CVSS base

5.4

MEDIUM

CISA SSVC assessment

Three decision points CISA publishes for the CVEs it assesses · SSVC 2.0.3. A stakeholder decision, not a severity score.

CISA

Exploitation

None

none · proof-of-concept · active

Automatable

No

can an attacker script all four kill-chain steps

Technical impact

Partial

partial · total control of the vulnerable component

Affected scope

The catalog records vendors and products as separate lists, not pairs, so which product belongs to which vendor is not something this page can say.

Vendors (1)

the curl project

Products (1)

curl

Every base score collected

Sources score independently and disagree; each row says who scored it and under which version.

ScoreVersionSeverityExpl.ImpactSource
5.4CVSS 3.0MEDIUM——cvelistV5

Weakness & attack patterns

  • CWE-125

Public exploit

Capability, not use: code existing is a different claim from anyone running it.

Indexed by

poc in github

Detection

Read off the CVSS vector and the weakness class. Starting points, not rules we have tested.

  • Search application, proxy, and WAF logs for requests touching /vauth/ntlm.c:ntlm_decode_type2_target.

References

12 on the record

Elsewhere on this site

Not in any source we poll

Listed rather than left blank: an empty field and an unmeasured one look identical on screen, and only one is a reason to look elsewhere.

  • No confirmed IOCs, IP addresses, domains, file hashes, or malware artifacts supplied.
  • No organization-specific asset inventory, compensating-control status, or patch deployment evidence supplied.
  • No exploit packet captures, log samples, or incident case IDs supplied.