CVE-2018-13843

Exp

An issue has been found in HTSlib 1.8. It is a memory leak in bgzf_getline in bgzf.c. NOTE: the software maintainer's position is that the "failure to free memory" can be fixed in applications that use the HTSlib library (such as test/test_bgzf.c in the original report) and is not a library issue

Published: 2018-07-10 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2018-13843 is rated High Exploit Risk (64.5/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.37%). 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.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2018-13843

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2018-13843

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 2025-03-19 0.33% 0.37% +0.03%
2 2025-03-17 0.11% 0.33% +0.22%
3 2023-03-07 0.11%

Full EPSS history (5 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-13843

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-2018-13843

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-13843

vendor priority summary link
debian low CVE-2018-13843 low priority: Debian including 1 source packages (htslib), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-13843
ubuntu negligible CVE-2018-13843 negligible priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (htslib), 17 status rows across 17 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 14, ignored 2, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-13843

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-13843

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
htslib htslib 1.8 cpe:2.3:a:htslib:htslib:1.8:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-13843

URL Tags
https://github.com/samtools/htslib/issues/731#issue-339662537 Exploit Patch Third Party Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence