CVE-2017-15088

plugins/preauth/pkinit/pkinit_crypto_openssl.c in MIT Kerberos 5 (aka krb5) through 1.15.2 mishandles Distinguished Name (DN) fields, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (buffer overflow and application crash) in situations involving untrusted X.509 data, related to the get_matching_data and X509_NAME_oneline_ex functions. NOTE: this has security relevance only in use cases outside of the MIT Kerberos distribution, e.g., the use of get_matching_data in KDC certauth plugin code that is specific to Red Hat.

Published: 2017-11-23 Last update: 2026-05-13 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2017-15088 is rated High Risk (77.2/100): CVSS Critical severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 8.37%, 94th percentile). EPSS ranks this CVE among the most likely to be exploited in the near term. EPSS rose +7.09% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. 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.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2017-15088

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 1.28% 8.37% +7.09%
2 2026-05-30 3.70% 1.28% -2.42%
3 2026-04-05 — 3.70% —

Full EPSS history (26 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2017-15088

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
9.8 3.1 CRITICAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 3.9 5.9 [email protected]
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-2017-15088

OS Trackers for CVE-2017-15088

vendor priority summary link
alpine — CVE-2017-15088: 1 source package rows (krb5); 10 state rows across 10 repos (3.10-main, 3.11-main, 3.12-main, 3.17-main, 3.18-main, 3.19-main, 3.20-main, 3.21-main, 3.22-main, edge-main); fixed 10, open 0. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2017-15088
debian unimportant CVE-2017-15088 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (krb5), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2017-15088
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-15088
suse high CVE-2017-15088 severity important: SUSE including 53 source package names (0.9.1:krb5-1.12.5-40.16.1, 1.0.0:krb5-1.12.5-40.16.1, …), 137 product×package rows across 39 product lines (Container caasp/v4/default-http-backend, Container caasp/v4/dnsmasq-nanny, … (39 product lines)): Fixed 126, Known Not Affected 11. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-15088/
ubuntu negligible CVE-2017-15088 negligible priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (krb5), 21 status rows across 21 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial, zesty): not-affected 16, ignored 2, released 2, needed 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2017-15088

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2017-15088

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
mit kerberos_5 <= 1.15.2 cpe:2.3:a:mit:kerberos_5:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2017-15088

URL Tags
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/101594 Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=871698 Issue Tracking Third Party Advisory
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1504045 Issue Tracking Patch Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/krb5/krb5/commit/fbb687db1088ddd894d975996e5f6a4252b9a2b4 Issue Tracking Patch Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/krb5/krb5/pull/707 Patch Third Party Advisory
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