The htmlParseComment function in HTMLparser.c in libxml2 allows attackers to obtain sensitive information, cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds heap memory access and application crash), or possibly have unspecified other impact via an unclosed HTML comment.

According to its self-reported version, the Nessus Network Monitor running on the remote host is prior to 6.2.2. It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the TNS-2023-23 advisory. Several of the third-party components were found to contain vulnerabilities, and updated versions have been made available by the providers. Out of caution and in line with best practice, Tenable has opted to upgrade these components to address the potential impact of the issues. Nessus Network Monitor 6.2.2 updates the following components:

  - c-ares from version 1.10.0 to version 1.19.1.
  - curl from version 7.79.1 to version 8.1.2.
  - libbzip2 from version 1.0.6 to version 1.0.8.
  - libpcre from version 8.42 to version 8.44.
  - libxml2 from version 2.7.7 to version 2.11.1.
  - libxslt from version 1.1.26 to version 1.1.37.
  - libxmlsec from version 1.2.18 to version 1.2.37.
  - sqlite from version 3.27.2 to version 3.40.1.
  - jQuery Cookie from version 1.3.1 to version 1.4.1.
  - jQuery UI from version 1.13.0 to version 1.13.2.
  - OpenSSL from version 3.0.8 to version 3.0.9.

A denial of service flaw was found in libxml2. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to leak potentially sensitive information.(CVE-2015-8242)

A denial of service flaw was found in libxml2. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to crash.(CVE-2015-7500)

A denial of service flaw was found in libxml2. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to leak potentially sensitive information.(CVE-2015-8317)

A denial of service flaw was found in libxml2. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to crash.(CVE-2015-7497)

A denial of service flaw was found in libxml2. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to crash.(CVE-2015-7498)

A denial of service flaw was found in the way the libxml2 library parsed certain XML files. An attacker could provide a specially crafted XML file that, when parsed by an application using libxml2, could cause that application to use an excessive amount of memory.(CVE-2015-1819)

A denial of service flaw was found in libxml2. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to crash.(CVE-2015-7941)

A denial of service flaw was found in libxml2. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to leak potentially sensitive information.(CVE-2015-7499)

A denial of service flaw was found in libxml2. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to leak potentially sensitive information.(CVE-2015-8241)

A denial of service flaw was found in libxml2. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to use an excessive amount of CPU.(CVE-2015-5312)

A heap-based buffer overflow flaw was found in the way libxml2 parsed certain crafted XML input. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML file that, when opened in an application linked against libxml2, would cause the application to crash causing a denial of service.(CVE-2015-7942)

It was discovered that libxml2 could access out-of-bounds memory when parsing unclosed HTML comments. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML file that, when processed by an application linked against libxml2, could cause the application to disclose heap memory contents.(CVE-2015-8710)

The htmlParseComment function in HTMLparser.c in libxml2 allows attackers to obtain sensitive information, cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds heap memory access and application crash), or possibly have unspecified other impact via an unclosed HTML comment.
(CVE-2015-8710)

This update for libxml2 fixes the following security issue :

  - CVE-2015-8710: Parsing short unclosed HTML comment could     cause uninitialized memory access, which allowed remote     attackers to read contents from previous HTTP requests     depending on the application (bsc#960674)

This update was imported from the SUSE:SLE-12:Update update project.

This update for libxml2 fixes the following security issue :

  - CVE-2015-8710: Parsing short unclosed HTML comment could     cause uninitialized memory access, which allowed remote     attackers to read contents from previous HTTP requests     depending on the application (bsc#960674)

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the SUSE security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

It was discovered that libxml2 incorrectly handled certain malformed documents. If a user or automated system were tricked into opening a specially crafted document, an attacker could possibly cause libxml2 to crash, resulting in a denial of service.

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

Several vulnerabilities were discovered in libxml2, a library providing support to read, modify and write XML and HTML files. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to use an excessive amount of CPU, leak potentially sensitive information, or crash the application.

Updated libxml2 packages that fix multiple security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having Moderate security impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base scores, which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each vulnerability from the CVE links in the References section.

The libxml2 library is a development toolbox providing the implementation of various XML standards.

Several denial of service flaws were found in libxml2, a library providing support for reading, modifying, and writing XML and HTML files. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to use an excessive amount of CPU, leak potentially sensitive information, or in certain cases crash the application.
(CVE-2015-1819, CVE-2015-5312, CVE-2015-7497, CVE-2015-7498, CVE-2015-7499, CVE-2015-7500 CVE-2015-7941, CVE-2015-7942, CVE-2015-8241, CVE-2015-8242, CVE-2015-8317, BZ#1213957, BZ#1281955)

Red Hat would like to thank the GNOME project for reporting CVE-2015-7497, CVE-2015-7498, CVE-2015-7499, CVE-2015-7500, CVE-2015-8241, CVE-2015-8242, and CVE-2015-8317. Upstream acknowledges Kostya Serebryany of Google as the original reporter of CVE-2015-7497, CVE-2015-7498, CVE-2015-7499, and CVE-2015-7500; Hugh Davenport as the original reporter of CVE-2015-8241 and CVE-2015-8242; and Hanno Boeck as the original reporter of CVE-2015-8317. The CVE-2015-1819 issue was discovered by Florian Weimer of Red Hat Product Security.

All libxml2 users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch to correct these issues. The desktop must be restarted (log out, then log back in) for this update to take effect.

From Red Hat Security Advisory 2015:2550 :

Updated libxml2 packages that fix multiple security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having Moderate security impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base scores, which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each vulnerability from the CVE links in the References section.

The libxml2 library is a development toolbox providing the implementation of various XML standards.

Several denial of service flaws were found in libxml2, a library providing support for reading, modifying, and writing XML and HTML files. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted XML or HTML file that, when processed by an application using libxml2, would cause that application to use an excessive amount of CPU, leak potentially sensitive information, or in certain cases crash the application.
(CVE-2015-1819, CVE-2015-5312, CVE-2015-7497, CVE-2015-7498, CVE-2015-7499, CVE-2015-7500 CVE-2015-7941, CVE-2015-7942, CVE-2015-8241, CVE-2015-8242, CVE-2015-8317, BZ#1213957, BZ#1281955)

Red Hat would like to thank the GNOME project for reporting CVE-2015-7497, CVE-2015-7498, CVE-2015-7499, CVE-2015-7500, CVE-2015-8241, CVE-2015-8242, and CVE-2015-8317. Upstream acknowledges Kostya Serebryany of Google as the original reporter of CVE-2015-7497, CVE-2015-7498, CVE-2015-7499, and CVE-2015-7500; Hugh Davenport as the original reporter of CVE-2015-8241 and CVE-2015-8242; and Hanno Boeck as the original reporter of CVE-2015-8317. The CVE-2015-1819 issue was discovered by Florian Weimer of Red Hat Product Security.

All libxml2 users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch to correct these issues. The desktop must be restarted (log out, then log back in) for this update to take effect.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
177842	Nessus Network Monitor < 6.2.2 Multiple Vulnerabilities (TNS-2023-23)	Nessus	Misc.	critical
125603	Amazon Linux 2 : libxml2 (ALAS-2019-1220)	Nessus	Amazon Linux Local Security Checks	critical
101858	F5 Networks BIG-IP : libxml2 vulnerability (K45439210)	Nessus	F5 Networks Local Security Checks	critical
88135	openSUSE Security Update : libxml2 (openSUSE-2016-68)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	critical
88081	SUSE SLED11 / SLES11 Security Update : libxml2 (SUSE-SU-2016:0187-1)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	critical
88038	SUSE SLED12 / SLES12 Security Update : libxml2 (SUSE-SU-2016:0178-1)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	critical
88019	Ubuntu 14.04 LTS : libxml2 vulnerabilities (USN-2875-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	critical
87608	Debian DSA-3430-1 : libxml2 - security update	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	critical
87234	RHEL 7 : libxml2 (RHSA-2015:2550)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	critical
87231	Oracle Linux 7 : libxml2 (ELSA-2015-2550)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	critical
87224	CentOS 7 : libxml2 (CESA-2015:2550)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	critical

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2015-8710

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