CVE-2024-8176 | Libexpat: expat: improper restriction of xml entity expansion depth in libexpat

A stack overflow vulnerability exists in the libexpat library due to the way it handles recursive entity expansion in XML documents. When parsing an XML document with deeply nested entity references, libexpat can be forced to recurse indefinitely, exhausting the stack space and causing a crash. This issue could lead to denial of service (DoS) or, in some cases, exploitable memory corruption, depending on the environment and library usage.

Published: 2025-03-14 Last update: 2026-04-15 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2024-8176 is rated Moderate Risk (56/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.57%). Mandatory action: Review affected assets and schedule 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-2024-8176

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 0.80% 1.57% +0.77%
2 2026-05-10 0.73% 0.80% +0.08%
3 2026-04-27 0.73%

Full EPSS history (42 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2024-8176

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/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]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2024-8176

OS Trackers for CVE-2024-8176

vendor priority summary link
alpine CVE-2024-8176: 1 source package rows (expat); 6 state rows across 6 repos (3.18-main, 3.19-main, 3.20-main, 3.21-main, 3.22-main, edge-main); fixed 6, open 0. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2024-8176
debian not yet assigned CVE-2024-8176 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 2 source packages (expat, libxmltok), 7 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 4, open 3. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2024-8176
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-8176
suse high CVE-2024-8176 severity important: SUSE including 333 source package names (0.0.17-1.1:libexpat1-2.7.1-150400.3.28.1, 0.1.6-1.2:libexpat1-2.7.1-150400.3.28.1, …), 834 product×package rows across 387 product lines (Container bci/gcc, Container bci/golang, … (387 product lines)): Fixed 611, Known Affected 221, Known Not Affected 2. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-8176/
ubuntu medium CVE-2024-8176 medium priority: Ubuntu including 23 source packages (apache2, apr-util, …), 208 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): needs-triage 79, not-affected 65, DNE 37, ignored 21, released 6. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2024-8176

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2024-8176

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
No affected products in dataset.

References for CVE-2024-8176

URL Tags
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:13681
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:22033
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:22034
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:22035
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:22607
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:22785
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:22842
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:22871
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:3531
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:3734
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:3913
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:4048
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:4446
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:4447
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:4448
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:4449
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:7444
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:7512
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:8385
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-8176
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2310137
https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/issues/893
https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/pull/973
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2025/May/10
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2025/May/11
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2025/May/12
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2025/May/6
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2025/May/7
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2025/May/8
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/03/15/1
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/09/24/11
https://blog.hartwork.org/posts/expat-2-7-0-released/
https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1239618
https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/blob/R_2_7_0/expat/Changes#L40-L52
https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/aports/-/commit/d068c3ff36fc6f4789988a09c69b434db757db53
https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2024-8176
https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20250328-0009/
https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2024-8176
https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/760160
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