zlib 1.2 and later versions allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a crafted compressed stream with an incomplete code description of a length greater than 1, which leads to a buffer overflow, as demonstrated using a crafted PNG file.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2005-2096 is rated Moderate Risk (57.1/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 5.48%, 92th percentile). Core evidence: EPSS ranks this CVE among the most likely to be exploited in the near term. Mandatory action: High exploitation likelihood—assess exposure and prioritize remediation.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
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 | 2026-06-15 | 43.03% | 5.48% | -37.56% |
| 2 | 2025-12-18 | 46.48% | 43.03% | -3.45% |
| 3 | 2025-06-23 | — | 46.48% | — |
Full EPSS history (13 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.5 | 2.0 | HIGH |
|
10.0 | 6.4 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
medium | CVE-2005-2096 medium priority: Debian including 14 source packages (aide, bacula, …), 68 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 68. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2005-2096 |
redhat
|
high | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2005-2096 |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2005-2096 medium priority: Ubuntu including 9 source packages (aide, bacula, …), 36 status rows across 4 suites (dapper, edgy, feisty, upstream): released 19, needs-triage 9, not-affected 6, ignored 2. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2005-2096 |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is not vulnerable to this issue as it contains a backported patch.