A critical heap buffer overflow vulnerability, dubbed CVE-2024-56406, was recently found in Perl, a widely used scripting language. The affected Perl release branches are 5.34, 5.36, 5.38, and 5.40, including development versions from 5.33.1 through 5.41.10. This vulnerability might lead to potential Denial of Service (DoS) and possibly Code Execution attacks on platforms that do not have adequate security measures.
Exploit Details
The vulnerability CVE-2024-56406 occurs when there are non-ASCII bytes in the left-hand-side of the tr operator. The S_do_trans_invmap function can cause an overflow of its destination pointer d, which leads to a segmentation fault. Here's a code snippet that demonstrates the issue:
$ perl -e '$_ = "\x{FF}" x 100000; tr/\xFF/\x{100}/;'
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
When the code above is executed, it results in a segmentation fault due to the buffer overflow vulnerability.
For more details on CVE-2024-56406, visit the following links to original references
1. Perl Official Website
2. CVE-2024-56406 Vulnerability Details on CVE Details
Mitigation
It is strongly recommended that users and developers of affected Perl branches update their software to the latest versions as soon as possible. Furthermore, exercise caution when handling user-supplied code or data that can exploit this vulnerability.
Conclusion
CVE-2024-56406, a heap buffer overflow vulnerability in Perl, poses a significant risk to software and systems that use affected branches of the scripting language. By exploiting this vulnerability, attackers can cause Denial of Service and potentially execute code on unsecured platforms. To avoid these threats and protect your systems, it is crucial to follow recommended mitigation measures and update to the latest Perl versions.
Timeline
Published on: 04/13/2025 14:15:14 UTC
Last modified on: 04/18/2025 17:15:34 UTC