neon before 0.28.6, when expat is used, does not properly detect recursion during entity expansion, which allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (memory and CPU consumption) via a crafted XML document containing a large number of nested entity references, a similar issue to CVE-2003-1564.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2009-2473 is rated High Exploit Risk (62.6/100): CVSS Medium severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 8.44%, 94th percentile). Core evidence: 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Mandatory action: 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.
| EDB-ID | Source | Kind | Published | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10206 | exploit_db | edb | 2009-11-12 | Exploit-DB ↗ |
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 | 11.05% | 8.44% | -2.61% |
| 2 | 2026-06-07 | 12.38% | 11.05% | -1.33% |
| 3 | 2026-04-12 | — | 12.38% | — |
Full EPSS history (12 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
|
unimportant | CVE-2009-2473 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (neon27), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2009-2473 |
redhat
|
medium | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2009-2473 |
suse
|
medium | CVE-2009-2473 severity moderate: SUSE including 20 source package names (libneon-devel-0.29.6-6.7.1, libneon-devel-0.30.0-3.65, …), 61 product×package rows across 32 product lines (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP1, … (32 product lines)): Fixed 61. | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2009-2473/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2009-2473 medium priority: Ubuntu including 3 source packages (neon, neon26, neon27), 15 status rows across 5 suites (dapper, hardy, intrepid, jaunty, upstream): not-affected 7, DNE 5, needs-triage 3. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2009-2473 |
Updated neon packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5 were released via: https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2009-1452.html Embedded copy of the neon library is included in the versions of gnome-vfs2 packages as shipped with Red Hat Enteprise Linux 4 and Red Hat Enteprise Linux 5. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this issue as having low security impact on gnome-vfs2, future updates may address this flaw.