There is an out-of-bounds write in checkType located in etc.c in w3m 0.5.3. It can be triggered by sending a crafted HTML file to the w3m binary. It allows an attacker to cause Denial of Service or possibly have unspecified other impact.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2022-38223 is rated Exploit Available (57.2/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.12%). 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.
| EDB-ID | Source | Kind | Published | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | nvd_ref | exploit_tag | Exploit-DB ↗ |
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 | 2025-12-24 | 0.15% | 0.12% | -0.04% |
| 2 | 2025-11-21 | 0.07% | 0.15% | +0.08% |
| 3 | 2025-11-18 | — | 0.07% | — |
Full EPSS history (15 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.8 | 3.1 | HIGH |
|
1.8 | 5.9 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
alpine
|
— | CVE-2022-38223: 1 source package rows (w3m); 10 state rows across 8 repos (3.17-community, 3.18-community, 3.19-community, 3.20-community, 3.21-community, 3.22-community, edge-community, edge-main); fixed 10, open 0. | https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2022-38223 |
debian
|
not yet assigned | CVE-2022-38223 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (w3m), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2022-38223 |
redhat
|
high | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-38223 |
suse
|
medium | — | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-38223/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2022-38223 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (w3m), 13 status rows across 13 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 11, needed 1, needs-triage 1. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2022-38223 |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| tats | w3m | 0.5.3 | cpe:2.3:a:tats:w3m:0.5.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| fedoraproject | fedora | 36 | cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:36:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| fedoraproject | fedora | 37 | cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:37:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |