CVE-2018-17294

Exp

The matchCurrentInput function inside lou_translateString.c of Liblouis prior to 3.7 does not check the input string's length, allowing attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash via out-of-bounds read) by crafting an input file with certain translation dictionaries.

Published: 2018-09-21 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2018-17294 is rated High Exploit Risk (72.6/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 2.72%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +2.21% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. 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-2018-17294

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2018-17294

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 0.51% 2.72% +2.21%
2 2025-11-21 0.38% 0.51% +0.13%
3 2025-11-18 — 0.38% —

Full EPSS history (10 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-17294

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.5 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/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: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.
 2.8 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]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2018-17294

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-17294

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2018-17294 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (liblouis), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-17294
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-17294
suse low CVE-2018-17294 severity low: SUSE including 25 source package names (liblouis, liblouis-1.7.0-1.3.16.1, …), 114 product×package rows across 37 product lines (SUSE CaaS Platform 4.5, SUSE Enterprise Storage 7, … (37 product lines)): Known Not Affected 67, Fixed 47. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-17294/
ubuntu medium CVE-2018-17294 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (liblouis), 4 status rows across 4 suites (bionic, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 2, DNE 1, not-affected 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-17294

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-17294

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
liblouis liblouis < 3.7.0 cpe:2.3:a:liblouis:liblouis:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
canonical ubuntu_linux 14.04 cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:14.04:*:*:*:lts:*:*:*
canonical ubuntu_linux 16.04 cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:*:*:*:lts:*:*:*
canonical ubuntu_linux 18.04 cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:18.04:*:*:*:lts:*:*:*
opensuse leap 15.0 cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:leap:15.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-17294

cvelogic Threat Intelligence