CVE-2017-5950 [Medium] | Memory Corruption in Yaml-Cpp

CVE-2017-5950 is rated Moderate Risk (50.7/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 2.03%). EPSS rose +1.26% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

#	Date	Old EPSS score	New EPSS score	Delta (New - Old)
1	2026-06-15	0.78%	2.03%	+1.26%
2	2025-12-13	1.58%	0.78%	-0.81%
3	2025-12-12	—	1.58%	—

Date

Old EPSS score

New EPSS score

Delta (New - Old)

2026-06-15

0.78%

2.03%

+1.26%

2025-12-13

1.58%

0.78%

-0.81%

2025-12-12

—

1.58%

—

Base score	Version	Severity	Vector	Exploitability	Impact	Score source
5.5	3.0	MEDIUM	`CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H` Click to expand Attack vector (AV:L) They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by. 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:R) A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land. 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.	1.8	3.6	[email protected]
4.3	2.0	MEDIUM	`AV:N/AC:M/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:M) Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones. 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.	8.6	2.9	[email protected]

Base score

Version

Severity

Vector

Exploitability

Impact

Score source

5.5

3.0

MEDIUM

CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand

Attack vector (AV:L): They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
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:R): A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
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.

1.8

3.6

[email protected]

4.3

2.0

MEDIUM

AV:N/AC:M/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:M): Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
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.

8.6

2.9

[email protected]

OS Trackers for CVE-2017-5950

vendor	priority	summary	link
`debian`	low	CVE-2017-5950 low priority: Debian including 1 source packages (yaml-cpp), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5.	https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2017-5950
`redhat`	medium	—	https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-5950
`suse`	medium	CVE-2017-5950 severity moderate: SUSE including 249 source package names (amazon/suse-sles-15-sp1-chost-byos-v20210304-hvm-ssd-x86_64, amazon/suse-sles-15-sp1-chost-byos-v20220127-hvm-ssd-x86_64, …), 304 product×package rows across 50 product lines (SUSE CaaS Platform 4.0, SUSE Enterprise Storage 6, … (50 product lines)): Known Affected 157, Fixed 111, Known Not Affected 36.	https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-5950/
`ubuntu`	negligible	CVE-2017-5950 negligible priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (yaml-cpp, yaml-cpp0.3), 46 status rows across 23 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, precise, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial, yakkety, zesty): DNE 17, not-affected 11, ignored 10, needed 6, deferred 1, released 1.	https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2017-5950

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2017-5950

Vendor	Product	Version	Raw CPE
yaml-cpp_project	yaml-cpp	0.5.3	cpe:2.3:a:yaml-cpp_project:yaml-cpp:0.5.3:::::::*

References for CVE-2017-5950

URL	Tags
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/97307	Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://github.com/jbeder/yaml-cpp/issues/459	Third Party Advisory
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2024/Nov/0

URL

CVE-2017-5950

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2017-5950

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2017-5950

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2017-5950

OS Trackers for CVE-2017-5950

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2017-5950

References for CVE-2017-5950