CVE-2003-0124

Exp

man before 1.5l allows attackers to execute arbitrary code via a malformed man file with improper quotes, which causes the my_xsprintf function to return a string with the value "unsafe," which is then executed as a program via a system call if it is in the search path of the user who runs man.

Published: 2003-03-18 Last update: 2026-04-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2003-0124 is rated High Exploit Risk (62/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.89%). 2 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2003-0124

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
22344 exploit_db edb 2003-03-11 Exploit-DB ↗
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2003-0124

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2025-03-30 1.79% 1.89% +0.09%
2 2025-03-29 1.89% 1.79% -0.09%
3 2025-03-17 — 1.89% —

Full EPSS history (5 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2003-0124

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.6 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 3.9 6.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2003-0124

OS Trackers for CVE-2003-0124

vendor priority summary link
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2003-0124

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2003-0124

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
andries_brouwer man 1.5h1 cpe:2.3:a:andries_brouwer:man:1.5h1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
andries_brouwer man 1.5i cpe:2.3:a:andries_brouwer:man:1.5i:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
andries_brouwer man 1.5i2 cpe:2.3:a:andries_brouwer:man:1.5i2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
andries_brouwer man 1.5j cpe:2.3:a:andries_brouwer:man:1.5j:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
andries_brouwer man 1.5k cpe:2.3:a:andries_brouwer:man:1.5k:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2003-0124

cvelogic Threat Intelligence