CVE-2015-3217

Exp

PCRE 7.8 and 8.32 through 8.37, and PCRE2 10.10 mishandle group empty matches, which might allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (stack-based buffer overflow) via a crafted regular expression, as demonstrated by /^(?:(?(1)\\.|([^\\\\W_])?)+)+$/.

Published: 2016-12-13 Last update: 2026-05-06 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2015-3217 is rated High Exploit Risk (69/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.86%). 1 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-2015-3217

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2015-3217

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 2025-12-01 2.89% 0.86% -2.03%
2 2025-06-03 2.02% 2.89% +0.88%
3 2025-05-31 — 2.02% —

Full EPSS history (15 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2015-3217

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 3.0 HIGH
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]
5.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 10.0 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2015-3217

OS Trackers for CVE-2015-3217

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2015-3217 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-2015-3217
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2015-3217
suse medium CVE-2015-3217 severity moderate: SUSE including 331 source package names (0.9.1:libpcre1-8.39-7.1, 1.0.0:libpcre1-8.39-7.1, …), 626 product×package rows across 106 product lines (Container caasp/v4/default-http-backend, Container caasp/v4/dnsmasq-nanny, … (106 product lines)): Fixed 319, Known Affected 157, Known Not Affected 150. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2015-3217/
ubuntu medium CVE-2015-3217 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (pcre3), 5 status rows across 5 suites (precise, trusty, upstream, utopic, vivid): not-affected 4, needed 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2015-3217

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2015-3217

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
pcre pcre2 10.10 cpe:2.3:a:pcre:pcre2:10.10:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
pcre pcre 7.8 cpe:2.3:a:pcre:pcre:7.8:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
pcre pcre 8.32 cpe:2.3:a:pcre:pcre:8.32:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
pcre pcre 8.33 cpe:2.3:a:pcre:pcre:8.33:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
pcre pcre 8.34 cpe:2.3:a:pcre:pcre:8.34:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
pcre pcre 8.35 cpe:2.3:a:pcre:pcre:8.35:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
pcre pcre 8.36 cpe:2.3:a:pcre:pcre:8.36:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
pcre pcre 8.37 cpe:2.3:a:pcre:pcre:8.37:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
ibm powerkvm 2.1 cpe:2.3:a:ibm:powerkvm:2.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
ibm powerkvm 3.1 cpe:2.3:a:ibm:powerkvm:3.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2015-3217

cvelogic Threat Intelligence