Perl-Compatible Regular Expression (PCRE) library before 6.2 does not properly count the number of named capturing subpatterns, which allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a regular expression with a large number of named subpatterns, which triggers a buffer overflow. NOTE: this issue was originally subsumed by CVE-2006-7224, but that CVE has been REJECTED and split.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2005-4872 is rated Moderate Risk (46.5/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 2.33%). Mandatory action: Review affected assets and schedule 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 | 1.50% | 2.33% | +0.83% |
| 2 | 2025-03-30 | 2.99% | 1.50% | -1.49% |
| 3 | 2025-03-29 | — | 2.99% | — |
Full EPSS history (11 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.3 | 2.0 | MEDIUM |
|
8.6 | 2.9 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
not yet assigned | CVE-2005-4872 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (pcre3), 2 status rows across 2 suites (bookworm, bullseye): resolved 2. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2005-4872 |
redhat
|
high | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2005-4872 |
ubuntu
|
low | CVE-2005-4872 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (pcre3), 5 status rows across 5 suites (dapper, edgy, feisty, gutsy, upstream): not-affected 4, released 1. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2005-4872 |