CVE-2015-8388

PCRE before 8.38 mishandles the /(?=di(?<=(?1))|(?=(.))))/ pattern and related patterns with an unmatched closing parenthesis, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (buffer overflow) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted regular expression, as demonstrated by a JavaScript RegExp object encountered by Konqueror.

Published: 2015-12-02 Last update: 2026-05-06 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2015-8388 is rated Moderate Risk (58.1/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 4.18%). Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2015-8388

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 2026-03-23 7.05% 4.18% -2.88%
2 2026-03-10 7.76% 7.05% -0.71%
3 2025-12-07 — 7.76% —

Full EPSS history (15 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2015-8388

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 2.0 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/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:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 10.0 6.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2015-8388

OS Trackers for CVE-2015-8388

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2015-8388 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-2015-8388
gentoo normal CVE-2015-8388: 1 GLSA(s) (201607-02), 1 atom(s) (dev-libs/libpcre); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2015-8388
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2015-8388
suse critical CVE-2015-8388 severity critical: SUSE including 39 source package names (0.9.1:libpcre1-8.39-7.1, 1.0.0:libpcre1-8.39-7.1, …), 160 product×package rows across 70 product lines (Container caasp/v4/default-http-backend, Container caasp/v4/dnsmasq-nanny, … (70 product lines)): Fixed 109, Known Not Affected 51. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2015-8388/
ubuntu low CVE-2015-8388 low priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (pcre2, pcre3), 10 status rows across 5 suites (precise, trusty, upstream, vivid, wily): released 5, DNE 4, not-affected 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2015-8388

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2015-8388

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
oracle linux 7 cpe:2.3:o:oracle:linux:7:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
pcre perl_compatible_regular_expression_library <= 8.37 cpe:2.3:a:pcre:perl_compatible_regular_expression_library:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2015-8388

cvelogic Threat Intelligence